Quantity of reinforcement and fixed-interval performance: Within-subject effects

Meltzer, Donald; Brahlek, James A.

doi:10.3758/bf03335584

Cited by 19 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…This is what Jensen and Fallon report and what I report in the present experiment. This Jensen and Fallon result is also consistent with data discussed earlier, showing that intermixing of different reinforcement durations is necessary for the demonstration of an inverse relation between reinforcement duration and response rate in the following interval (Hatten & Shull, 1972;Meltzer & Brahlek, 1970;Meltzer & Howerton, 1973;Staddon, 1970a).…”

Section: Other Experimental Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Temporal control, attention, and memory.

Staddon¹

1974

Psychological Review

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Animals do not usually respond for food at times when it is not available, such as the time just after food delivery on periodic schedules. Consequently, food acquires inhibitory aftereffects (inhibitory temporal control) on such schedules so that its omission elevates subsequent response rate (omission effect). Data and arguments are presented to show that temporal control depends on the properties of memory and attention. Maintained reinforcement-omission effects reflect temporal overshadowing of neutral events, such as food omission, by more salient, and memorable, events such as food. Disinhibition of delay and reinforcement-magnitude context effects can also be analyzed in these terms.

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Section: Other Experimental Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Temporal control, attention, and memory.

Staddon¹

1974

Psychological Review

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“…That the y-intercepts of the fitted lines are really nonzero is suggested both by the similarity of the intercepts of the two lines and by Meltzer and Brahlek's (1970) data for individual rats (Meltzer, personal communication, January 1977 What could produce a nonzero intercept? The most plausible answer seems to be: Responses produced by a parallel process (parallel to the serial processes that produce multiplicative factors).…”

Section: A Less Simple Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The data of individual subjects were available for three experiments with multiplicative factors: Meltzer and Brahlek (1970, Figure 4); Rozin (1965, Figure 19);and Roberts (1983, Figures 18 and 24). They were examined for curvature.…”

Section: Appendix B Significance Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for distinct serial processes in animals: The multiplicative-factors method

Roberts

1987

Animal Learning & Behavior

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The assumption that responses are controlled by distinct serially arranged processes was used by Sternberg (1969a) to explain the result, observed in many human experiments, that two factors have additive effects on reaction time (RT). With slight changes, Sternberg's explanation of additive factors with RT also explains the result, observed in animal experiments, that two factors have multiplicative effects on response rate. This article describes and interprets 17 examples of multiplicative factors from response-rate experiments with rats, pigeons, and goldfish, as well as some other animal evidence for distinct serial processes. The examples suggest and/or support new and old ideas about generalization, attention, timing, learning, motivation, and response production. Most important, the animal evidence makes the case for distinct serial processes considerably stronger. Since the procedures used in the two sets of experiments (human and animal) have little in common, distinct serial processes may control behavior in a very wide range of situations.Sternberg (l969a) introduced the additive-factor method (AFM), a guide to designing and interpreting reaction time (RT) experiments, and used the method to show that there was evidence for distinct serially arranged processes (which Sternberg called processing stages) in a number of human RT experiments. The data that he used to illustrate the method are unusual. They come from factorial RT experiments, and the key result, found in a number of experiments, was that pairs of factors (treatments) had close-to-additive effects on mean RT. One unusual feature of the data is the precision of the additivity. In most cases, an additive model fit so well that in graphs of the data, all of the points (representing the data) touched the fitted lines (representing the model). In a few cases, it was not obvious that the lines had not been drawn through the points. Ten of Sternberg's examples provided enough data to calculate the percentage of variance explained by an additive model; on the average (median over the 10 cases), an additive model describes 99.89% of the variance. In one set of experiments, not done with the method in mind, an additive model described RTs with median absolute error of 1.8 msec (median taken over five pairs of factors). In an experiment designed for the method, the errors were .9 msec (one pair offactors) and.4 msec (same pair at a different level of a third factor), with RTs on the order of 500 msec. Sternberg (1971) described 9

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“…After the signal and time discriminations were established, occasional trials began with the 30-sec signal but later shifted to the 60-sec signal. Taken together, the results suggest that the rat's clock has many of the qualitative properties of a stopwatch: It can be stopped temporarily (Experiments 1 and 2) ; time before stopping can be added without loss to time after stopping (Experiment 2) ; it times signals from different modalities (Experiment 3); it times intervals of different lengths (Experiment 3) ; it times intervals of different lengths using the same rate (Experiment 3); and it times up (Experiment 3).With fixed-interval (FI) reinforcementwhere food is primed a fixed time after food is given-a rat pressing a lever responds more often as the time of food approaches (e.g., Meltzer & Brahlek, 1970;Sherman, 1959;Skinner, 1938). With the related choice procedure-where the correct choice depends on the duration of a signal-a rat's performance can be much better than chance (e.g., Church, Getty, & Lerner, 1976;Cowles & Finan, 1941;Heron, 1949).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With fixed-interval (FI) reinforcementwhere food is primed a fixed time after food is given-a rat pressing a lever responds more often as the time of food approaches (e.g., Meltzer & Brahlek, 1970;Sherman, 1959;Skinner, 1938). With the related choice procedure-where the correct choice depends on the duration of a signal-a rat's performance can be much better than chance (e.g., Church, Getty, & Lerner, 1976;Cowles & Finan, 1941;Heron, 1949).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Control of an internal clock.

Roberts¹,

Church²

1978

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

150

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Three experiments studied the time discrimination of rats. The purpose of the experiments was to determine some properties of the internal clock being used. Experiment 1 used a fixed-interval procedure, with 60-sec intervals. After the time discrimination was established, occasional trials contained a 15-sec break (lever withdrawn, noise on). Experiment 2 used a choice procedure, with signal durations from 4 to 22 sec. After the time discrimination was established, occasional signals contained a 2-sec or 4-sec break (light off, noise on). Experiment 3 used a fixed-interval procedure, with 30-sec intervals (signaled by light) and 60-sec intervals (signaled by sound). After the signal and time discriminations were established, occasional trials began with the 30-sec signal but later shifted to the 60-sec signal. Taken together, the results suggest that the rat's clock has many of the qualitative properties of a stopwatch: It can be stopped temporarily (Experiments 1 and 2) ; time before stopping can be added without loss to time after stopping (Experiment 2) ; it times signals from different modalities (Experiment 3); it times intervals of different lengths (Experiment 3) ; it times intervals of different lengths using the same rate (Experiment 3); and it times up (Experiment 3).With fixed-interval (FI) reinforcementwhere food is primed a fixed time after food is given-a rat pressing a lever responds more often as the time of food approaches (e.g., Meltzer & Brahlek, 1970;Sherman, 1959;Skinner, 1938). With the related choice procedure-where the correct choice depends on the duration of a signal-a rat's performance can be much better than chance (e.g., Church, Getty, & Lerner, 1976;Cowles & Finan, 1941;Heron, 1949). Both results show that rats can discriminate time, and thus suggest that rats have a "clock" (some-

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Quantity of reinforcement and fixed-interval performance: Within-subject effects

Cited by 19 publications

References 4 publications

Temporal control, attention, and memory.

Temporal control, attention, and memory.

Evidence for distinct serial processes in animals: The multiplicative-factors method

Control of an internal clock.

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