In each of the two experiments, a group of five rats lived in a complex maze containing four small single-lever operant chambers. In two of these chambers, food was available on variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. In Experilnent I, nine combinations of variable intervals were used, and the aggregate lever-pressing rates (by the five rats together) were studied. The log ratio of the rates in the two chambers was linearly related to the log ratio of the reinforcenment rates in them; this is an instance of Herrnstein's matching law, as generalized by Baum. Suinming over the two food chambers, food consumption decreased, and response output increased, as the time required to earn each pellet increased.In Experiment II, the behavior of individual rats was observed by time-sampling on selected days, while different variable-iinterval schedules were arranged in the two chambers where food was available. Individual lever-pressing rates for the rats were obtained, and their median bore the same "matching" relationship to the reinforcement rates as the group aggregate in Experimenit I. There were differences between the rats in their distribution of time and responses between the two food chambers; these differences were correlated with differences in the proportions of reinforcements the rats obtained from each chamber. eralization of the matching law proposed by Baum (1974b), according to which log (R1/R2) = a log (r,/r2) + b (1) where Ri and ri are the response and reinforcement rates on the ith schedule and a and b are fitting constants. Lobb and Davison (1975) suggested that a is usually in the range 0.8 to 1.0; the simple matching law would require it to equal 1.0 always.We are concerned with the relation between psychological experiments on choice, and the choices made by consumers in the course of their economic behavior. The present paper describes experiments with conc VI VI schedules under conditions that we tried to make somewhat like those of the real economy. More than one subject had access to the apparatus at a time, the subjects had to obtain all their food by working on the schedules, and access to the schedules was unrestricted. Our purpose was to see whether the matching law would still be useful in this "real-life" (or nearer-toreal-life) situation.Should the matching law be expected to hold in these experiments? On the one hand, some schedule effects survive relaxation of standard experimental conditions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.