Mirror Pecking and Timeout Under a Multiple Fixed‐ratio Schedule of Food Delivery

Ator, Nancy A.

doi:10.1901/jeab.1980.34-319

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Because the birds pecked the escape key, Azrin concluded that schedules of positive reinforcement have aversive aspects. Other studies of FR schedules (Appel, 1963; Ator, 1980; Thompson, 1964, 1965), FI schedules (Brown & Flory, 1972; Cohen & Campagnoni, 1989), and progressive‐ratio schedules (Dardano, 1973, 1974) have confirmed escape responding during the period immediately following reinforcer delivery.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Extended Pausing by Humans on Multiple Fixed-Ratio Schedules With Varied Reinforcer Magnitude and Response Requirements

Williams

Saunders

Perone

2011

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

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We conducted three experiments to reproduce and extend Perone and Courtney's (1992) study of pausing at the beginning of fixed-ratio schedules. In a multiple schedule with unequal amounts of food across two components, they found that pigeons paused longest in the component associated with the smaller amount of food (the lean component), but only when it was preceded by the rich component. In our studies, adults with mild intellectual disabilities responded on a touch-sensitive computer monitor to produce money. In Experiment 1, the multiple-schedule components differed in both response requirement and reinforcer magnitude (i.e., the rich component required fewer responses and produced more money than the lean component). Effects shown with pigeons were reproduced in all 7 participants. In Experiment 2, we removed the stimuli that signaled the two schedule components, and participants' extended pausing was eliminated. In Experiment 3, to assess sensitivity to reinforcer magnitude versus fixed-ratio size, we presented conditions with equal ratio sizes but disparate magnitudes and conditions with equal magnitudes but disparate ratio sizes. Sensitivity to these manipulations was idiosyncratic. The present experiments obtained schedule control in verbally competent human participants and, despite procedural differences, we reproduced findings with animal participants. We showed that pausing is jointly determined by past conditions of reinforcement and stimuli correlated with upcoming conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Extended Pausing by Humans on Multiple Fixed-Ratio Schedules With Varied Reinforcer Magnitude and Response Requirements

Williams

Saunders

Perone

2011

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

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“…Alternatively, there may be aversive aspects of the fixed-ratio response requirements leading to increased levels of induced behavior. Numerous studies have demonstrated that pigeons or rats will respond to terminate or escape from stimuli associated with schedules of positive reinforcement (e.g., Appel, 1963;Ator, 1980;Azrin, 1961;Brown & Flory, 1972;Dardano, 1973;Dinsmoor, Lee, & Brown, 1986;Thompson, 1964) This escape behavior usually occurs in the early postreinforcement period, when the probability of reinforcement is low. Azrin et al (1966) and Hutchinson et al (1968) suggest that induced attack during ratio schedules may be a function of the aversive elements related to response number required for reinforcement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Induced Attack During Fixed‐ratio and Matched‐time Schedules of Food Presentation

Kupfer

Allen

Malagodi

2008

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Adjunctive or induced behavior is generated during a variety of schedules of reinforcement. Several theoretical conceptualizations suggest that rate of reinforcement is the primary variable controlling the strength or levels of induced behavior. The operant response requirement within the schedule context has not been extensively studied as a determinant of induced responding. In the present study, levels of induced attack by food-deprived pigeons against restrained conspecifics were compared during response-dependent and response-independent schedules of food presentation equated or yoked interval-by-interval for reinforcement frequency. Experiment 1 compared levels of attack induced by fixed-ratio schedules of key pecking and yoked ''matched-time'' schedules. Experiment 2 similarly compared chained fixed-ratio 1 fixed-ratio 74 and yoked chained matched-time matched-time schedules. In both experiments, the response-dependent schedules generated greater levels (amount and probability) of induced attack than the response-independent time-based schedules. Thus, the ratio response requirement may be an important determinant of levels of induced responding, and the lower levels of attack observed during the response-independent condition may not be due to the absence of stimuli predicting food presentations. It is concluded that rate of reinforcement is not the sole variable determining levels of induced responding and that response-based and time-based schedules differ in their generation of induced responding.Key words: schedule-induced attack, adjunctive behavior, target pigeons, fixed-ratio schedules, matched-time schedules, key peck, pigeons _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Behavior neither elicited nor directly reinforced is generated and maintained during many intermittent schedules of reinforcement. Adjunctive or schedule-induced behavior includes drinking or polydipsia in rats (e.g., Falk, 1961a,b), pigeons (Magyar & Malagodi, 1980), and monkeys (Porter & Kenshalo, 1974), aggression in rats (Huston & DeSisto, 1971) and pigeons (e.g., Azrin, Hutchinson, & Hake, 1966;Flory, 1969a;Pitts & Malagodi, 1996;Webbe, DeWeese, & Malagodi, 1974); escape (Azrin, 1961;Brown & Flory, 1972;Thompson, 1964); wheel-running (Levitsky & Collier, 1968); hose-biting (DeWeese, 1977;Hutchinson, Azrin, & Hunt, 1968); and a host of other activities (Kelly & Hake, 1970;Killeen, 1975;Lyon & Turner, 1972;Mendelson & Chillag, 1970;Miller & Gollub, 1974;Muller, Crow, & Cheney, 1979;Staddon & Simmelhag, 1971). These topographically dissimilar behaviors display certain functional commonalities when induced during schedules of reinforcement, including: (a) the temporal locus within the interreinforcement interval (induced behavior typically occurs in the immediate postreinforcement period when operant or terminal behavior is low in probability); (b) the gradual development over time of induced behavior with extended exp...

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“…For the FR schedule, the pause was measured as the time between delivery of the previous reinforcer and completion of the fifth response within the next ratio. The procedure of using the fifth response rather than the first incorporated most of the drinking bouts (87%) into the pause, and it discounted instances in which the sustained part of the ratio run was preceded by a few spaced responses (for a similar approach, see Ator, 1980;Capehart, Eckerman, Guilkey, & Shull, 1980). The same procedure was used for the VR schedule except that pauses preceding ratios with a single response were excluded from the analysis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preratio Pausing: Effects of an Alternative Reinforcer on Fixed and Variable‐ratio Responding

Derenne

Baron

2002

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Seven rats responding under fixed-ratio or variable-ratio schedules of food reinforcement had continuous access to a drinking tube inserted into the operant chamber. Under different conditions they could drink either tap water or one of two saccharin solutions. In a baseline condition, the drinking bottle was empty. Preratio pausing was observed with both schedules, more so with the fixed-ratio than the variable-ratio schedule, and increasing the concentration of the saccharin solution increased the duration of pausing. Comparisons with baseline performances revealed that the additional pausing was largely, but not entirely, spent drinking. The results support the view that pausing under ratio schedules is a consequence of competition between the scheduled reinforcer and alternative reinforcers that also are available within the experimental environment.

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Mirror Pecking and Timeout Under a Multiple Fixed‐ratio Schedule of Food Delivery

Cited by 23 publications

References 35 publications

Extended Pausing by Humans on Multiple Fixed-Ratio Schedules With Varied Reinforcer Magnitude and Response Requirements

Extended Pausing by Humans on Multiple Fixed-Ratio Schedules With Varied Reinforcer Magnitude and Response Requirements

Induced Attack During Fixed‐ratio and Matched‐time Schedules of Food Presentation

Preratio Pausing: Effects of an Alternative Reinforcer on Fixed and Variable‐ratio Responding

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