Pigeons were maintained on a fixed ratio (FR 9) schedule of reinforcement for correct matchingto-sample responses. Included in the test situation was a vertical array of lights, illuminated in relation to the successive steps of the fixed ratio. All five subjects showed regular decrements in matching errors across the sequence of unreinforced responses within the ratio cycle. In the form of a randomly introduced probe, the stimulus situation (array of lights) appropriate to having seven of the FR 9 steps already completed was occasionally introduced at the beginning of an FR cycle. Reinforcement followed the illumination of the two remaining lights by two correct matches. The number of errors in this probe condition was sharply lower than the errors characteristic of the first two steps of the basic FR 9.When maintained with reinforcement for every nth response (fixed-ratio), behavior frequently varies cyclically between successive reinforcements. For a color matching-to-sample situation, Nevin, Cumming, and Berryman (1963) report increases in the relative frequency of correct matches across the unreinforced sequences of a fixed ratio (FR). Variations in such properties of response as peak force, duration, and time integral of force have also been noted in FR behavior (Mintz, 1962;Notterman and Mintz, 1965). When the schedule of reinforcement requires a particular variation of the response to be emitted, the probability of this subclass has been shown to increase systematically across the unreinforced response sequences in FR cycles (Birch, 1964;Notterman and Mintz, 1965). The rate of response may also vary cyclically when performance is maintained with fixed ratio reinforcement. The pause and run pattern is a well-known characteristic of FR behavior. If a change in some exteroceptive stimulus is correlated with the steps of the ratio, changes in response rate across the unreinforced sequence tend to be pronounced (Ferster and Skinner, 1957).
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