Methodological improvements to a Procedure for Rapidly Establishing Steady‐State Behavior

Abstract

We performed three experiments to improve the quality and retention of data obtained from a Procedure for Rapidly Establishing Steady-State Behavior (PRESS-B; Klapes et al., 2020). In Experiment 1, 120 participants worked on nine concurrent random-interval random-interval (conc RI RI) schedules and were assigned to four conditions of varying changeover delay (COD) length. The 0.5-s COD condition group exhibited the fewest instances of exclusive reinforcer acquisition. Importantly, this group did not differ in generalized matching law (GML) fit quality from the other groups. In Experiment 2, 60 participants worked on nine conc RI RI schedules with a wider range of scheduled reinforcement rate ratios than was used in Experiment 1. Participants showed dramatic reductions in exclusive reinforcer acquisition. Experiment 3 entailed a replication of Experiment 2 wherein blackout periods were implemented between the schedule presentations and each schedule remained in operation until at least one reinforcer was acquired on each alternative. GML fit quality was slightly more consistent in Experiment 3 than in the previous experiments. Thus, these results suggest that future PRESS-B studies should implement a shorter COD, a wider and richer scheduled reinforcement rate ratio range, and brief blackouts between schedule presentations for optimal data quality and retention.

Corrigendum to: A discriminated rapid‐acquisition laboratory procedure for human continuous choice

“…tion, we reported that the extinction schedule at the end of the experiment was presented for 30 s. The extinction schedule was actually presented to the participants for 60 s. Subsequent studies using the procedure described in this publication adopted the 30 s extinction phase (Klapes et al, 2021).…”

An evaluation of methods for studying the effects of conditioned reinforcement on human choice

“…We included schedules of S+ production that were twice as dense as those included by Shahan et al (2006). However, even denser schedules, such as those employed by Klapes and colleagues (Klapes et al, 2020; Klapes et al, 2021), could be beneficial to further increase subjects' contact with and sensitivity to the contingencies. We evaluated the addition of a response cost contingency for pressing the lever, which increased the rate of observing responding.…”

“…To get access to the other square, you'll have to press the switch button.” In contrast to what is displayed in Figure 1, only one observing response was visible at a time and both observing responses were displayed as blank gray squares. Previous research that has obtained sensitivity to changes in the relative rate of reinforcement and high‐quality fits to the generalized matching equation with human participants (Klapes et al, 2020; Klapes et al, 2021) has included a changeover response. We hypothesized that the addition of the changeover response may increase the duration of “visits” to each observing response and the salience of difference in S+ production rate.…”

“…No additional information was added to the script for this group. Previous research obtaining human behavior that is sensitive to changes in the relative rate of reinforcement and well described by the generalized matching equation (e.g., Bradshaw et al, 1979;Klapes et al, 2020;Klapes et al, 2021) has included ordinal discriminative stimuli. We hypothesized that the addition of ordinal discriminative stimuli may increase the salience of differences in S+ production rate within and across conditions.…”

“…Some modifications stem from practical or ethical constraints related to feasibility and participant burden (e.g., reduced session time and limited control over reinforcers), whereas others (e.g., ordinal discriminative stimuli, denser schedules of reinforcement) are designed to maximize the effects of programmed contingencies and quality of data obtained despite those practical constraints. The combined use of a changeover response procedure (Findley, 1958), ordinal discriminative stimuli (Bradshaw et al, 1976), and dense schedules of reinforcement in matching experiments with established reinforcers (i.e., points, money) have yielded human behavior that is highly sensitive to changes in the relative rates of reinforcement and well described by the generalized matching law (Klapes et al, 2020; Klapes et al, 2021). It may be useful to extend these and other procedural modifications to develop a methodology for studying the effects of S+ production rate and related phenomena on human behavior.…”