Reporting Contingencies of Reinforcement in Concurrent Schedules

Jones, B. M.; Davison, Michael

doi:10.1901/jeab.1998.69-161

Cited by 19 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Jones and Davison () showed substantial contingency discriminability (“Which response produced the reinforcer?”) in concurrent VI VI schedules using a conditional‐discrimination procedure that followed every concurrent‐schedule reinforcer. A similar result was obtained by Kuroda and Lattal ().…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stimulus duration enhances discrimination in both conditional discrimination (e.g., Nelson & Wasserman, 1978, Experiment 3) and in divided attention (Shahan & Podlesnik, 2007). Jones and Davison (1998) showed substantial contingency discriminability ("Which response produced the reinforcer?") in concurrent VI VI schedules using a conditionaldiscrimination procedure that followed every concurrent-schedule reinforcer.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Divided stimulus control: Which key did you peck, or what color was it?

Davison

2017

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Responding on concurrent schedules produced a conditional discrimination (Phases 1 and 2), asking either which peck produced the event, or which color the keys were when the event was produced. In Phases 3 and 4, reinforcer delivery or a delay in blackout was interpolated between responding and the conditional discrimination. In Phase 1, location versus color discrimination accuracy was controlled by the relative reinforcer frequency for correct responses to these questions (divided stimulus control). In Phases 2 to 4, relative reinforcer frequency for correct responses to these questions was .5, and the relative frequency with which concurrent-schedule responses produced the questions was varied. This variation had no clear effect on the accuracy of reporting Location or Color. These results are consistent with the model of divided control suggested by Davison and Elliffe (2010). Arranging a 3-s reinforcer between responding and choice decreased both color and location accuracy, but a 3-s delay only decreased location accuracy. Thus, in concurrent-schedule performance, both ambient stimuli prior to a reinforcer and the location of the just-reinforced response are available as discriminative stimuli following the reinforcer. Control of postreinforcer responding is divided between these according to their association with the relative frequency of subsequent reinforcers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divided stimulus control: Which key did you peck, or what color was it?

Davison

2017

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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“…A third possibility is that non-exclusive acceptance or rejection could be due to “errors” that the animals make because of failures of discrimination, association, or memory (cf., Davison & Jenkins, 1985; Jones & Davison, 1998). Another approach to this problem is to postulate a mechanism that leads to a gradual shift in preference rather than a step function.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of reinforcer delay and variability in a successive-encounters procedure

Mazur

2008

Learning & Behavior

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experiment with pigeons, each trial began with a fixedinterval (FI) 5-sec schedule on a white center key (the search period). When a pigeon completed the FI schedule, the choice period began. The center key remained white, and a side key was lit either green or red (with equal probability); these two key colors represented two different types of prey that were associated with two different handling times. The green key represented a prey item with a short handling time (an FI 5-sec schedule leading to food), and the red key represented a prey item with a long handling time (an FI 20-sec schedule leading to food). With either alternative, the pigeon could accept the prey (by pecking the green or red key) or reject it (by pecking the white key three times, which would return the pigeon to the search period and the beginning of a new FI 5-sec schedule). The pigeons almost always accepted the short alternative (the green key), which is not surprising, because rejecting it and returning to the search period would always increase the delay to the next food delivery. Of greater theoretical interest were the pigeons' choices when the long alternative (the red key) was presented.To predict whether the pigeons would accept or reject the long alternative, Lea (1979) relied on a version of optimal foraging theory now known as optimal diet theory (Cook & Cockrell, 1978;Sih & Christensen, 2001). Stated simply, optimal diet theory predicts that the animal should accept the long alternative only if, on average, it provides a greater amount of food per unit time than could be obtained by returning to the search period (cf. Goss-Custard, 1977;Krebs, Erichsen, Webber, & Charnov, 1977;Snyderman, 1983). For this specific example, optimal diet theory states that the pigeon should always reject the long alternative, because a strategy of continually returning to the search period until the short alternative (the green key) is presented would result in an average of one food delivery every 15 sec (since it would take an average of two presentations of the 5-sec search period to reach the 5-sec handling period for the short alternative), which is shorter than the 20-sec handling time for the long alternative.Suppose, however, that the search period is FI 7.5 sec rather than FI 5 sec. Now optimal diet theory predicts indifference between acceptance and rejection of the long alternative, because the average time to food is 20 sec whether the animal accepts the long alternative or returns to the search period. (In this case, if the long alternative were always rejected, it would take an average of two presentations of the 7.5-sec search period to reach the 5-sec handling period for the short alternative, which is a total 301Copyright 2008 Psychonomic Society, Inc. Effects of reinforcer delay and variability in a successive-encounters procedure JAMES E. MAZUR Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, ConnecticutPigeons responded in a successive-encounters procedure that consisted of a search period, a choice period, and a handling p...

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“…In addition, any change in the two response ratios (i.e., B w /B x and B y /B z ) with variation of the reinforcer ratio (R w /R z ) is assumed to reflect only changing biases for choosing one comparison more often than the other. Consequently, these models consider any difference between matching accuracies (e.g., proportion correct scores) on S 1 and S 2 trials evidence of a response bias (see Jones & Davison, 1998, for a critical discussion of these assumptions). The fact, however, that choice between comparisons in the present study was seldom biased toward more errors than correct responses suggests another way to consider the effects of non-unity reinforcer ratios on MTS performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies that have arranged similar MTS procedures and varied the same procedural parameters (e.g., Godfrey & Davison, 1998Jones & Davison, 1998) have found that percentage correct scores and measures of response bias usually stabilize within 20 sessions of a condition change. In the present experiment, therefore, experimental conditions remained in effect for at least 40 sessions so that data from the last 20 sessions could be used in analyses.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Quantitative Analyses of Matching‐to‐sample Performance

2003

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Six pigeons performed a simultaneous matching-to-sample (MTS) task involving patterns of dots on a liquid-crystal display. Two samples and two comparisons differed in terms of the density of pixels visible through pecking keys mounted in front of the display. Selections of Comparison 1 after Sample 1, and of Comparison 2 after Sample 2, produced intermittent access to food, and errors always produced a time-out. The disparity between the samples and between the comparisons varied across sets of conditions. The ratio of food deliveries for the two correct responses varied over a wide range within each set of conditions, and one condition arranged extinction for correct responses following Sample 1. The quantitative models proposed by Davison and Tustin (1978), Alsop (1991), and failed to predict performance in some extreme reinforcer-ratio conditions because comparison choice approached indifference (and strong position biases emerged) when the sample clearly signaled a low (or zero) rate of reinforcement. An alternative conceptualization of the reinforcement contingencies operating in MTS tasks is advanced and was supported by further analyses of the data. This model relates the differential responding between the comparisons following each sample to the differential reinforcement for correct responses following that sample.

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Reporting Contingencies of Reinforcement in Concurrent Schedules

Cited by 19 publications

References 32 publications

Divided stimulus control: Which key did you peck, or what color was it?

Divided stimulus control: Which key did you peck, or what color was it?

Effects of reinforcer delay and variability in a successive-encounters procedure

Quantitative Analyses of Matching‐to‐sample Performance

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