RESPONSE LATENCY AS A FUNCTION OF REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE 1

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Two monkeys were trained to press and hold down a telegraph key in the presence of a red light. Subsequent release of the key in response to a white cross superimposed on the red background was followed by reinforcement. Key release in response to a white circle on the red background was never reinforced. Latencies for the key release response to the reinforced stimulus (cross) were considerably shorter and less variable than those to the unreinforced stimulus (circle).Earlier papers have described a technique for measuring response latency (Stebbins and Lanson, 1961) and the effects of reinforcement schedule (Stebbins and Lanson, 1962) and amount of reinforcement (Stebbins, 1962) on the response latency of the rat. Subjects learned to depress a key in response to one stimulus and to release the key after a second stimulus. In all these studies the dependent variable was the latency of key release to the second stimulus. In the present study, the technique was used with two monkeys and response latencies were examined after the acquisition of a visual discrimination. The contingencies are those of the classical simple reaction time experiment with humans, with the exception that short latencies are not selectively reinforced. METHOD SubjectsTwo experimentally naive, adult, male monkeys (Nemestrina Macaque) were restrained throughout the experiment in a slight modification of the chair described by Young (1957). Subjects obtained about 150 0.7 g

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confidence: 99%

Section: University Of Washington School Of Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

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NOTE ON CHANGES IN RESPONSE LATENCY FOLLOWING DISCRIMINATION TRAINING IN THE MONKEY¹

Stebbins

Reynolds

1964

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“…Intermittent schedules have been shown to engender a degree of variability intermediate between the low levels observed on an FR 1 schedule and the high variability produced by extinction. For example, Stebbins and Lanson (1962) showed that the variability of lever releasing of rats under a variable-ratio (VR) 3 schedule was intermediate between the levels produced by FR 1 and by extinction. Using a procedure similar to that of Antonitis (1951), Eckerman and Lanson (1969) found further support for the generalization that FR 1 engenders minimal response class variability, relative to random-interval (RI) schedules arranging from 0.4 to 2.0 reinforcers per minute.…”

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Effects of Fixed and Variable Ratios on Human Behavioral Variability

Tatham¹,

Wanchisen²,

Hineline³

1993

The effect that ratio schedules of reinforcement had upon variability of responding was investigated in college students. Subjects were paid $0.02 contingent upon completion of eight presses, distributed in any combination across two push buttons; 256 different sequences were possible. Sequence emission was reinforced according to fixed- and variable-ratio schedules. Ratio requirements of 1, 2, 4 and 8 were presented in alternate components of a multiple schedule. The variability engendered by variable-ratio schedules was also compared to that engendered by fixed ratios. Variability increased with ratio size, irrespective of whether the schedule requirement was fixed or variable. The data demonstrate the similarity between the determinants of human and nonhuman variability, and they illustrate the role of ratio size in determining variability in operant behavior.

“…Holding the lever for 2 sec produced a tone, and release of the lever in the presence of the tone was reinforced. Reaction times decreased with increases in reinforcer magnitude (Stebbins, 1962) and frequency (Stebbins & Lanson, 1962). Subsequent research with rats and monkeys (Miller, Glickstein, & Stebbins, 1966; Moody, 1970;Saslow, 1968Saslow, , 1972Stebbins, 1966) showed that reaction times also vary as a function of stimulus characteristics (intensity, frequency) and contingencies for rapid responding (reinforcement occurred only if the response was within a time limit).…”

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Reaction Times of Younger and Older Men and Temporal Contingencies of Reinforcement

Baron

Menich

Perone

1983

Influences of extended training and temporal contingencies on reaction time were studied in relation to developmental differences. Older and younger men were trained on a chained schedule in which completion of a variable interval produced a terminal link in which reaction time was measured. The reaction-time procedure involved a conditional discrimination with matching to sample in one component and oddity matching in the other. During baseline training, no time limit was placed on the response to the discrimination choice stimuli. Subsequently, increasingly severe time limits were imposed over a series of sessions. Older and younger men showed increased speeds (decreased reaction times) when temporal contingencies were imposed, and these changes were maintained during posttraining baseline sessions when there was unlimited time in which to respond. The younger men generally responded faster than the older ones, and age differences were not appreciably reduced during the course of the experiment. The results indicated the feasibility of studying reaction time in human subjects using operant procedures analogous to those developed for the study of nonverbal organisms.