Momentary Maximizing in Concurrent Schedules With a Minimum Interchangeover Interval

Todorov, João Claúdio; Souza, Deisy das Graças de; Bori, Carolina M.

doi:10.1901/jeab.1993.60-415

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…This account can be applied to successive discriminations by assuming that in each component the choice between responding and engaging in other behavior is determined by reinforcers obtained by responding relative to reinforcers obtained by other behavior (McLean, 1995;McLean & White, 1983). This application is consistent with extant data on the conditions favoring the occurrence of the time-related decrement in discrimination and is supported by a result recently reported by Todorov, Souza, and Bori (1993). Todorov et al showed that when an increase in the minimum interchangeover time in a changeover-key concurrent schedule rendered the procedure more similar to a multiple schedule, sensitivity to concurrent reinforcer ratios was high for short times and low for long times, analogous to the reduction in m with increasing time since stimulus transition, as illustrated by the present Experiment 1.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Action at a Temporal Distance: Component Transition as the Relational Basis for Successive Discrimination

White

1995

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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In a successive discrimination, red and green hues signaled component variable-interval schedules. The exponent of the power function relating ratios of responses in the red and green components to ratios of reinforcers provided a reinforcement-free measure of discrimination or stimulus control.Responses were recorded in successive 10-s subintervals of the 50-s components. The power-function exponent decreased systematically with increasing time since component transition in most conditions of five experiments. This reduction was not influenced by the absolute rate of reinforcement, consistent with the interpretation of the exponent as a measure of stimulus control. A reduction in the overall level of stimulus control by increasing the duration of response-produced keylight offset did not influence the decrease in discrimination with increasing time since component transition. The results support the conclusion that discriminative responding in successive discriminations is governed by several sources of stimulus control including delayed control by component transition. (Williams, 1983), or stimulus events, as in procedures to study remembering (White, 1985a). In a simple successive discrimination, two discriminative stimuli such as red and green colors alternate in succession and independent reinforcement schedules are associated with each. The development of a response differential or discrimination is influenced by two sources of control: reinforcer and stimulus control. A response differential is unlikely in the absence of a reinforcer differential and is possible only under conditions of a stimulus difference. In general terms, the determinants of a discrimination are relational in that the effects of reinforcers and stimuli in one component are relative to those in the other (White, Pipe, &

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Action at a Temporal Distance: Component Transition as the Relational Basis for Successive Discrimination

White

1995

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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“…His birds, like Nevin's under a discrete-trial procedure (Nevin, 1969), were no more likely to switch schedules after one peck than after 10 pecks to a single alternative. That is, the probability of a switch did not increase as a function of run length (however, see Todorov, Souza, & Bori, 1993). Of course, as repeatedly stressed in this paper, run length is not an accurate measure of reinforcement probability, especially in a free-operant procedure that permits variable rates of responding.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Interresponse‐time Sensitivity During Discrete‐trial and Free‐operant Concurrent Variable‐interval Schedules

Jm¹

1999

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Two experiments investigated the sensitivity of pigeons' choice to elapsed time since the last response (i.e., to inter-response time [IRT]) during concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules. Experiment 1 used a two-key discrete-trial procedure with variable intertrial intervals. Experiment 2 employed a three-key free-operant procedure. In both experiments choice was found to be a function of the active-schedule IRT, defined as the time since the most recent response. Monte Carlo simulations show how this finding permits the joining of several seemingly incompatible data sets held to both support and contradict a kind of choice strategy, termed momentary maximizing, which attempts to maximize momentary reinforcement probabilities. The studies suggest that only two variables are needed to describe the static molecular structure of concurrent variable-interval choice: active-schedule IRTs and "response states" consisting of the last one or two schedule choices.

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“…One way to test this assumption has been to examine distributions of interresponse times (IRTs), likelihoods of response bursts, bouts of responding, pulses, or of successive choices and other sequential statistics as a function of changeover delay or intertrial interval to see if they correspond to a constant probability of random behavior. In general, they do not, and instead show what seem likely to be effects of shaping (Anger, 1954(Anger, /1973(Anger, , 1956Blough, 1966;Jones & Moore, 1999;Nevin, 1979;Shimp, 1967;Shull, Grimes, & Bennett, 2004;Todorov, Souza, & Bori, 1993).…”

Section: The Assumption That Behavioral Variability Over Time Is Randommentioning

confidence: 99%

How Molecular, Molar, and Unified Analyses Change the Meaning ofBehavioral Variability

Shimp¹

2014

IJCP

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What effects reinforcement is assumed to have and what data are collected depend on what behavioral variability means. It has extremely different meanings in molecular, molar, and unified behavior analyses. In molecular analyses the term relates reinforcement and moment-to-moment behaving of an individual organism, as when hand shaping creates new complex paterns extended in time or as when cumulative records show complex patterns. Molecular behavioral variability is easy to see, as in these two examples, but is hard to describe quantitatively. Behavioral variability in the context of molar analyses requires first aggregating behaviors, then counting them or finding their cumulative durations, and finally quantitatively summarizing the aggregate by a statistic, usually an average rate of occurrence of, or an average time allocated to, the aggregated behaviors. The statistic can also be a measure of variabiity, like the U statistic, rather than of central tendency. Molar behavioral variability can also be quantitatively defined as the variabiity of a statistic describing some property of an aggregate as a function of time, individuals, or, most commonly, experimental parameters. Some molar accounts interpret the aggregate statistic itself (average rate, time allocation, or variaibity) as an operant response. Quantitative theories account for over 90 percent of this kind of variability in thousands of molar analyses. Molar variability, however, seldom describes or explains molecular variability, and a common molar interpretation of free-operant behaving is that molecular behavior varies ony randomly over time with a constant probability. There is little, if any, evidence for this interpretation and a considerable literature that suggests it is incorrrect. A unified analysis combines automated shaping of molecular, quantitative patterns of behaviors, a molar aggregate of those patterns, and one or more statistics descriptive of the aggregate. A unified analysis involves both kinds of quantitative behavioral variability: moment-to-moment variability of shaped patterns resembling target patterns, and molar variability of a statistic defined over an aggregate of such shaped patterns, such as the variability of the average rate of, or time allocated to, a shaped pattern. Only simulation theories seem sufficiently powerful to produce a general and unified theory to account for both moment-to-moment behaving and statistics that describe molar aggregates.

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Momentary Maximizing in Concurrent Schedules With a Minimum Interchangeover Interval

Cited by 9 publications

References 40 publications

Action at a Temporal Distance: Component Transition as the Relational Basis for Successive Discrimination

Action at a Temporal Distance: Component Transition as the Relational Basis for Successive Discrimination

Interresponse‐time Sensitivity During Discrete‐trial and Free‐operant Concurrent Variable‐interval Schedules

How Molecular, Molar, and Unified Analyses Change the Meaning ofBehavioral Variability

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