Sum of responding as a function of sum of reinforcement on two-key concurrent schedules

McSweeney, Frances K.

doi:10.3758/bf03209140

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…one inference common to various forms of the matching relationship (e.g., Baum & Rachlin, 1969; Herrnstein, 1970) is that absolute and relative behaviors are independent of each other (i.e., one may change while the other remains constant). This notion has been confirmed in a number of situations (see Herrnstein, 1961;Holz, 1968;McSweeny, 1975McSweeny, , 1977Wald & Cheney, 1975), but such research has been quite limited. Since the viability of any theory rests upon its consistency and applicability across as many conditions as possible, the focus of the present study was to test further the independent nature of absolute and relative rate of response in a manner different from that of past research.…”

mentioning

confidence: 92%

“…This notion has been confirmed in a number of situations (see Herrnstein, 1961;Holz, 1968;McSweeny, 1975McSweeny, , 1977 Wald & Cheney, 1975), but such research has been quite limited. Since the viability of any theory rests upon its consistency and applicability across as many conditions as possible, the focus of the present study was to test further the independent nature of absolute and relative rate of response in a manner different from that of past research.…”

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confidence: 92%

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The maintenance of matching behavior when contrast occurs in multiple concurrent concurrent schedules of reinforcement

Marcattilio

Richards

1980

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Pigeons were trained on a multiple schedule of reinforcement in which each component was a concurrent schedule. The concurrent schedules were programmed by the changeover-key procedure. The primary purpose was to determine if the relative behavior allocated to two response alternatives is affected when absolute changes in these behaviors occur; i.e., to determine if matching is affected when positive behavioral contrast occurs. Results showed that (1) relative behavior in the unaltered component of the multiple schedule is not disrupted when positive contrast occurs in that component, (2) positive contrast occurred when the overall frequency of reinforcement in the reinforcement-correlated component(s) was high, but not when it was low, (3) changeover behavior was susceptible to positive contrast effects, and (4) changeover contrast and food-key contrast are independent phenomena.Studies of choice behavior in concurrent schedules of reinforcement have shown that there is a simple relationship between the subject's response rates and obtained reinforcement rates. This relationship, called the matching law (Herrnstein, 1961(Herrnstein, , 1970, states that pigeons' relative rate of responding in one component of the concurrent schedule matches the relative rate of reinforcement obtained in that component. Baum and Rachlin (1969) have suggested that this relationship may be best expressed as the proportional quantity: (1) where PI and P, and the total number of responses emitted during the first and second components, respectively, r, and r z are the total number of reinforcements obtained in the first and second components, respectively, and K is a constant describing the bias between the components.A great deal of research has documented the accuracy of the matching law, and shown that matching does occur when parameters of reinforcement such as frequency, magnitude, delay, and quality are manipulated (see de Villiers, 1977, Herrnstein, 1970) is that absolute and relative behaviors are independent of each other (i.e., one may change while the other remains constant). This notion has been confirmed in a number of situations (see Herrnstein, 1961;Holz, 1968;McSweeny, 1975McSweeny, , 1977 Wald & Cheney, 1975), but such research has been quite limited. Since the viability of any theory rests upon its consistency and applicability across as many conditions as possible, the focus of the present study was to test further the independent nature of absolute and relative rate of response in a manner different from that of past research. This was accomplished by modifying the prototypical paradigm that produces behavioral contrast in simple multiple schedules. In the prototypical paradigm, a change from multiple variable-interval variable-interval (mult VI VI) reinforcement to multiple variable-interval extinction (mult VI EXT) reinforcement results in a decrease in response rate during the second component because responding is no longer reinforced, while response rate in the first component increases above the baseli...

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confidence: 92%

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confidence: 92%

The maintenance of matching behavior when contrast occurs in multiple concurrent concurrent schedules of reinforcement

Marcattilio

Richards

1980

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…Heyman and Luce (1979a) p. 138 present arguments for ignoring response costs, but it can be claimed that they oversimplify the issue. For example, McSweeney (1977) shows that there is a significant (albeit small) change in overall response rate with overall reward and discusses some drawbacks with previous investigations. Furthermore, response rates on each schedule are not equal, and vary with time since the changeover (Silberberg & Fantino, 1970).…”

Section: Generality and Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Maximize Reward Rate on Two Variable‐interval Paradigms

Houston

McNamara

1981

J Exper Analysis Behavior

173

121

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Without assuming any constraints on behavior, we derive the policy that maximizes overall reward rate on two variable-interval paradigms. The first paradigm is concurrent variable time-variable time with changeover delay. It is shown that for nearly all parameter values, a switch to the schedule with the longer interval should be followed immediately by a switch back to the schedule with the shorter interval. The matching law does not hold at the optimum and does not uniquely specify the obtained reward rate. The second paradigm is discrete trial concurrent variable interval-variable interval. For given schedule parameters, the optimal policy involves a cycle of a fixed number of choices of the schedule with the shorter interval followed by one choice of the schedule with the longer interval. Molecular maximization sometimes results in optimal behavior.

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“…Third, as predicted by the equation, the rate of responding emitted during one component of a concurrent schedule varies inversely with the rate of reinforcement obtained from the other component, regardless of whether those reinforcers are response dependent (e.g., Catania, 1963;Herrnstein, 1961) or response independent (Rachlin & Baum, 1972). Finally, as predicted by the equation, the sum of the rates of responding may increase with increases in the sum of the rates of reinforcement that the components provide (e.g., Catania, 1963;Findley, 1958;McSweeney, 1977;Schmitt, 1974).…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Herrnstein’s equation for the rates of responding during concurrent schedules

McSweeney

Melville

Whipple

1983

Animal Learning & Behavior

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A modification of the nonlinear curve-fitting procedure proposed by Wetherington and Lucas (1980) was used to assess how well Herrnstein's (1970) equation for the rates of responding during concurrent schedules described performance. The equation fitted some results very well, accounting for 80% or more of the variance in the data in studies that used moderateduration changeover delays and provided the same positive reinforcers, operanda, and simple schedules in the two components. The equation fitted the data poorly in other studies. The k parameter changed with several variables; it was not as constant as Herrnstein (1974)

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Sum of responding as a function of sum of reinforcement on two-key concurrent schedules

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

The maintenance of matching behavior when contrast occurs in multiple concurrent concurrent schedules of reinforcement

The maintenance of matching behavior when contrast occurs in multiple concurrent concurrent schedules of reinforcement

How to Maximize Reward Rate on Two Variable‐interval Paradigms

Herrnstein’s equation for the rates of responding during concurrent schedules

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