Concurrent‐schedule Performance in Dairy Cows: Persistent Undermatching

Abstract

Performance of dairy cows responding under concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules of food delivery was examined, with results analyzed in terms of the generalized matching equation. In Experiment 1, bias measures indicated that crushed barley was preferred over meatmeal when these foods were available under the alternative schedules. For whole-session data, substantial undermatching of response and time-allocation ratios to obtained reinforcement ratios was evident. Postreinforcement pause time ratios approximately matched obtained reinforcement rates. Subtracting these times from total time-allocation values yielded net time-allocation ratios that undermatched obtained reinforcement ratios to a greater degree than did whole-session time-allocation ratios. In Experiment 2, substantial undermatching was evident when the same foods (hay for 2 cows, crushed barley for 2 others) were available under the alternative schedules. Food-related activities and other defined behavior not related to food were quantified by direct observation, and were found to occupy a substantial proportion (roughly 40% to 80%) of experimental sessions. Subtracting the time spent in these activities from the time allocated to each component schedule did not reduce the degree of undermatching obtained. Across all conditions in both experiments, slopes of regression lines relating behavioral outputs to environmental inputs characteristically were below 0.6, which agrees with prior findings and suggests that, contrary to suggestions in the literature, undermatching in dairy cows is not the result of using different foods under alternative schedules or differential pausing under those schedules.

Choice under concurrent VI schedules: comparison of behavior maintained by cocaine or food

“…Perhaps species differences or some aspect of the behavioral situation contributed to the relatively lower slopes seen in the present study. However, slopes consistently below 0.6 for both time and response allocation have been reported (e.g., Foster et al 1996). In some experiments, undermatching has been found to increase as the number of successive conditions presented to the same subjects increased (Keller and Gollub 1977;Todorov et al 1983), a factor that could have contributed to the present results.…”

Concurrent Schedules: Quantifying the Aversiveness of Noise

“…Red Green Hen 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 14 15 11 13 (Foster, Temple, Robertson, Nair, & Poling, 1996), much bigger than that reported for cows' preferences for crushed barley over dairymeal (Matthews & Temple, * 1979), and less than that reported for pi-!8 geons' preferences for wheat over electrical stimulation of the brain (Hollard & Davison, 1971). In the studies just cited, measures of bias from response and time data were very similar.…”

Conditioning Methods for Animals in Agriculture: A Review

“…The study results strongly indicated that cows can distinguish color. Further use of operant conditioning was seen in a study that determined cow food preferences where cows were given a choice between food reinforcement opportunities (23,24) . The results of the study indicated that cows preferred crushed barley to meatmeal showing that operant conditioning and positive reinforcement can be used to learn more about cattle preferences, learning, and discrimination.…”