Effects of Reinforcement Context on Choice

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the effects of successive reinforcement contexts on choice. In the first, concurrent variable-interval schedules of primary reinforcement operated during the initial links of concurrent chains. The rate of this reinforcement arranged by the concurrent schedules was decreased across conditions: When it was higher than the terminal-link rate, preference for the higher frequency initial-link schedule increased relative to baseline. (During baseline, a standard concurrent-schedule procedure was in effect.) When the initial-link reinforcement rate was lower than the terminal-link rate, preference converged toward indifference. In the second experiment, a chain schedule was available on a third key while a concurrent schedule was in effect on the side keys. When the terminal link of the chain schedule was produced, the side keys became inoperative. Availability of the chain schedule did not affect choice between the concurrent schedules. These results show that only when successive reinforcement contexts are produced by choice responding do those successive contexts affect choice in concurrent schedules.Key words: concurrent schedules, concurrent chains, successive reinforcement context, choice, key peck, pigeonsContextual variables have been shown to be important determiners of behavior (e.g., Fantino & Dunn, 1983;Gibbon, 1981;Heyman & Bouzas, 1980;Rescorla, 1982;Reynolds, 1961;Williams, 1981). For example, the effects of reinforcement context on response rate have been demonstrated in experimental situations involving one (Rachlin & Baum, 1972), two (Catania, 1963;Duncan & Silberberg, 1982;Lobb & Davison, 1977;Rachlin & Baum, 1969;Wilkie, 1973), or three response keys (Davison & Hunter, 1976;Davison & Temple, 1974;Nevin, Mandell, & Yarensky, 1981). In the above experiments, an alternative source of reinforcement-the reinforcement context-varied in reinforcer amount (Rachlin & Baum, 1969) or rate (e.g., Catania, 1963), or the alternative reinforcers were delayed (e.g., Rachlin & Baum, 1972), signaled (e.g., Nevin et al., 1981), or delivered freely as opposed to response contingently (e.g., Duncan & Silberberg, 1982). The The effect of contextual reinforcement upon choice per se has also been investigated (Davison, 1982;Davison & Hunter, 1976;Davison & Temple, 1974;Fantino & Dunn, 1983;Lobb & Davison, 1977;McLean & White,. 1983;Miller & Loveland, 1974;Pliskoff & Brown, 1976;Pliskoff, Shull, & Gollub, 1968;Prelec & Herrnstein, 1978). In these studies, contextual reinforcement consisted of a schedule of primary reinforcement, operating in the presence of, and uniquely correlated with, an exteroceptive stimulus. The contextual-reinforcement schedule constituted an additional source of primary reinforcement, above and beyond that which maintained the choice responding under study. The reinforcement context was provided in one of two ways. In one group of studies, it consisted of a third choice alternative, added to the original two-alternative choice. The added choice alternative was arrange...

Steady‐state choice between four alternatives obeys the constant‐ratio rule

“…Switching-key procedures arrange a separate response to alternate between alternatives arranged in the same location, and therefore require discriminating the different stimuli that signal each alternative (Findley, 1958). Data from switching-key procedures more often violate the constant-ratio rule (e.g., Boelens, Kop, Nagel, & Slangen, 1987;Davison & McCarthy, 1994;Murrell, 1995) than those from procedures arranging response alternatives in physically different locations (e.g., Davison, 1982;Davison & Hunter, 1976;Fantino & Dunn, 1983;Jacob & Fantino, 1988). For example, Boelens et al observed that preference between two alternatives systematically changed as the reinforcer rate arranged on a third alternative was varied in a switching-key procedure, violating the constant-ratio rule.…”

Signs and countersigns

“…For example, the function of discriminative stimuli, ignored by G & G, can capture many of the behavioral features of G & G's ethological approach. Second, the past thirty years of operant research has strongly implicated contextual variables: For example, Jacob and Fantino (1988) have confirmed older findings that the response rate on one key varies directly with its contingent rate of reinforcement and inversely with its contextual rate of reinforcement (Catania 1963;Rachlin & Baum 1972;Reynolds 1961), a finding that G & G should explain in terms of their alternative approach.…”

Happiest thought: Dynamics and behavior

“…Because it may be relevant to resistance to change in concurrent schedules, we discuss here the study by Jacob and Fantino (1988), which Fantino asks us to interpret. They examined the effects of two interventions on performance on a standard two-key concurrent VI VI schedule of food reinforcement, and concluded that preference was affected only when transitions to a richer or leaner schedule were response-contingent.…”