Local Preference in Concurrent Schedules: the Effects of Reinforcer Sequences

Overview

Journal J Exp Anal Behav

Specialties Psychology
Social Sciences

Date 2005 Sep 15

PMID 16156136

Citations 17

Authors

Christian U Krageloh

Michael Davison

Douglas M Elliffe

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We investigated the effects that sequences of reinforcers obtained from the same response key have on local preference in concurrent variable-interval schedules with pigeons as subjects. With an overall reinforcer rate of one every 27 s, on average, reinforcers were scheduled dependently, and the probability that a reinforcer would be arranged on the same alternative as the previous reinforcer was manipulated. Throughout the experiment, the overall reinforcer ratio was 1:1, but across conditions we varied the average lengths of same-key reinforcer sequences by varying this conditional probability from 0 to 1. Thus, in some conditions, reinforcer locations changed frequently, whereas in others there tended to be very long sequences of same-key reinforcers. Although there was a general tendency to stay at the just-reinforced alternative, this tendency was considerably decreased in conditions where same-key reinforcer sequences were short. Some effects of reinforcers are at least partly to be accounted for by their signaling subsequent reinforcer locations.

Citing Articles

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