SOME TEMPORAL PARAMETERS OF NON‐CONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT1
- 1 September 1971
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
- Vol. 16 (2), 207-217
- https://doi.org/10.1901/jeab.1971.16-207
Abstract
In each baseline session, pigeons were exposed to a multiple schedule in which each of five distinctive stimuli was correlated with a different frequency of reinforcement. In one component, responses were reinforced with a probability of 0.10 (random‐ratio schedule); in the other four components, responses were reinforced with different scheduled temporal frequencies averaging 30 to 240 sec between reinforcements (random‐interval schedules). For periods lasting 30 sessions, contingent reinforcement was discontinued and reinforcement was presented independent of responding at irregular intervals averaging 30, 60, or 120 sec, while the sequence of stimuli continued. After each such period, the baseline was reinstated for 30 sessions. The data indicated that: (1) The rate of responding in the presence of all stimuli decreased as exposure to the non‐contingent reinforcement procedure was prolonged, at all the frequencies of reinforcement employed; (2) The rate under the random‐ratio schedule declined faster than the rates under all the random‐interval schedules, presumably because the decrease in reinforcement frequency under this stimulus condition was greatest; (3) The decline in rates of responding under the stimuli correlated with the random‐interval schedules tended to be greatest for the stimuli paired with the lowest frequencies of reinforcement.Keywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- FIXED AND VARIABLE SCHEDULES OF RESPONSE‐INDEPENDENT REINFORCEMENT1Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1968
- PROPERTIES OF BEHAVIOR UNDER RANDOM INTERVAL REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES1Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1963
- Schedules of reinforcement.Published by American Psychological Association (APA) ,1957
- ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULESProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1956
- Sustained behavior under delayed reinforcement.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1953
- 'Superstition' in the pigeon.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1948