Reinforcement

About: Reinforcement is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9207 publications have been published within this topic receiving 265106 citations. The topic is also known as: Reinforcement & Reinforcement, Psychology.

Effect of Response Effort on Choice Behavior of Pigeons in Reinforcement Schedules Manipulating Distance between Operanda

Abstract: Previous studies have shown that choice behavior in pigeons is systematically affected by the response effort, such as force or locomotion between response keys, as well as a delay in reinforcement or the amount of reinforcement. The present study aimed to investigate choice behavior in reinforcement schedules in which distance between operanda was manipulated as a response effort from the point of view of generalized matching law. To do so, a distance schedule was developed to manipulate the distance between response keys. In this schedule, pigeons were required to produce either 4 or 10 responses. Interresponse distances, a measure of the distance as a response effort, were calculated by summing the distances between the locations of successive responses. The present study employed a concurrent-chain design in which variable-interval schedules and distance schedules formed the initial and terminal links, respectively, of the concurrent chain. The results showed a matching relation between the initial-links response ratio and the interresponse distance ratio in a condition where 10 responses were required in terminal-links, but not in the condition with 4 responses. This implies that response effort is an important factor in determining choice behavior, as well as other factors including rate or amount of reinforcement or delay in reinforcement. However, the present results could be confounded by the effects of the elapsed time before reinforcement. Thus, further research will be needed using a modified version of the present distance-choice procedure to isolate the effect of distance itself.

Local Response Rates as Affected by Reinforcement Quality

Abstract: Four white rats were trained to bar press on reinforcement schedule Tandem FI 30 sec. FR11, a procedure intended to approximate a runway situation with intertrial intervals of at least 30 sec. Means and distributions of times taken by Ss to make 10 responses were approximately equal irrespective of reinforcement quality over the range 0 to 32% sucrose by weight in water. Similiar results were obtained with two other Ss reinforced on schedule FR12, 5-sec. delay, and with another reinforced on schedule FR24. The results were interpreted as showing that reinforcement quality affects competing behavior rather than response speed when S is responding.