The Reinforcing Effects of Houselight Illumination During Chained Schedules of Food Presentation

Abstract

Pigeons' keypecking was maintained under two- and three-component chained schedules of food presentation. The component schedules were all fixed-interval schedules of either 1- or 2-min duration. Across conditions the presence of houselight illumination within each component schedule was manipulated. For each pigeon, first-component response rates increased significantly when the houselight was extinguished in the first component and illuminated in the second. The results suggest that the increase was not the result of disinhibition or modification of stimulus control by component stimuli, but appears to result from the reinforcement of responding by the onset of illumination in the second component. Additionally, the apparent reinforcing properties of houselight illumination resulted neither from association of the houselight with the terminal component of the chained schedule nor through generalization of the hopper illumination present during food presentation. The results of the present series of experiments are related to previous demonstrations of illumination-reinforced responding and to the interpretation of data from experiments employing houselight illumination as stimuli associated with timeout or brief stimuli in second-order schedules.

Connecting animal trainers and behavior analysts through loopy training

“…When chains are taught with cues between the links, the particular response sequence often does not persist when the cues are removed (Boren & Devine, 1968). In other words, responding remains under the control of the cue (Snodgrass & McMillan, 1989) rather than being controlled by the completion of the previous response (Allen et al, 2008; Kelleher & Fry, 1962). This persistent control by the cue is advantageous in loopy training because it allows the handler to flexibly adapt sequences.…”