Temporal control, attention, and memory.

Abstract

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.

Shortening of subjective tone intervals followed by repetitive tone stimuli

“…Thus, our results cannot be explained by the internal pacemaker account per se, but they do suggest that there are contributions from some other processes, such as the memory or decision components in temporal processing. This agrees with recent theories that hypothesize that a working memory forms the basis of temporal perception (Lewis & Miall, 2006;Matell & Meck, 2004;Niki & Watanabe, 1979;Staddon, 1974;Staddon & Higa, 1999).…”

Signal properties of reinforcement and reinforcement omission on a multiple fixed-ratio schedule

“…This provides direct support for the hypothesis that an animal's response to reinforcement omission is determined by a stimulus complex that minimally includes the omission event and component cues. As Staddon (1974) posits, a presumably neutral stimulus (in this case a time-out) is inherently less salient to a hungry animal than is a food reinforcement, an assumption that has since found empirical support (Spetch & Wilkie, 1981). However, the neutral stimulus can interact with other stimuli, in this case a change of key color, to signal the initiation of a new schedule component.…”

“…In the absence of reinforcement, the subject may fail to discriminate this transition; short delays and second-component stimuli similar to the first component facilitate this lack of discrimination, that is, they make the transition more difficult to perceive. Staddon (1974) has used similar logic to argue against the "Wagner control" (Wagner, 1959) procedure which provided results commonly cited as evidence against the possibility that reinforcement inhibits responding. Wagner found that rats that were never reinforced in the first goalbox of a double runway ran more slowly to the second goalbox than did experimental rats that had experienced reinforcement omission in the first goalbox following a history of continuous reinforcement.…”

“…However, given a spaced responding (DRL) schedule, characterized by a decrease in response rate as the interval progresses, responding after reinforcement omission is depressed relative to responding after reinforcement (Staddon, 1970). Staddon (1974) has argued that the motivational account of reinforcement omission, which posits that an omission of reinforcement will "energize" responding, cannot account for these results. Alternatively, if reinforcement inhibits responding, then, in the absence of reinforcement, responding should continue at the prevailing rate.…”

“…These results are predicted, however, by an analysis that assumes that reinforcement has an inhibitory influence on responding. Staddon (1974) has suggested that these effects are attributable to a breakdown of temporal control. He posits that reinforcement is an inherently more salient stimulus than is a presumably neutral stimulus, such as a time-out.…”