The Effects of Differing Response‐force Requirements on Fixed‐ratio Responding of Rats

Alling, Ken; Poling, Alan

doi:10.1901/jeab.1995.63-331

Cited by 53 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These results are consistent with the findings of Alling and Poling (1995), who found that increased response effort decreases response rates and increases postreinforcement pauses. For 4 out of5 of the rats, the relationship between self-control and response latency was statistically significant, as were the combined data for all of the rats.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Effects of response effort on self-control in rats

Chelonis

Logue

Sheehy

et al. 1998

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Five rats served as subjects in an experiment that examined the effect of increasing response effort on self-control (choice of a larger, more delayed reinforcer over a smaller, less delayed reinforcer). The rats made significantly more self-control choices as the force required to respond on each lever increased from 0.1 to 0.8 N. As the force required to press the levers increased to 1 N and then began to decrease, some of the rats stopped responding. For those rats that continued to respond, self-control tended to decrease. The results suggest that increasing the required response force can increase selfcontrol choices, as long as the required response force is low enough that some responding occurs.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Effects of response effort on self-control in rats

Chelonis

Logue

Sheehy

et al. 1998

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Note that at the 2-g force requirement, threshold and criterion were equal (only open circles). In previous studies not using force transducer methods only criterion response rates were recorded (e.g., Alling & Poling, 1995) and compared across force requirements. However, once the force requirement has been changed, the defined operant has also been changed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Time and effort are two basic dimensions of all observable behavior, but while the temporal dimensions of behavior have been measured extensively, the effort dimension has received little attention (Alling & Poling, 1995;Fowler, 1987). However, more recent work has described an apparatus and procedure for quantifying response effort in CD-1 mice (Zarcone, Chen, & Fowler, 2007).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Differing Response‐force Requirements on Food‐maintained Responding in C57bl/6j Mice

Zarcone

Chen²,

Fowler

2009

J Exper Analysis Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The effect of force requirements on response effort was examined using inbred C57BL/6J mice trained to press a disk with their snout. Lateral peak forces greater than 2 g were defined as responses (i.e., all responses above the measurement threshold). Different, higher force requirements were used to define criterion responses (a subclass of all responses) that exceeded the requirement and produced a reinforcer. The reinforcer was sweetened, condensed milk, delivered upon response termination. All mice were exposed to two ascending series of criterion force requirements (2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 g). Increasing the force requirement initially decreased criterion response rates, but criterion response rates recovered with continued exposure, except at the 32-g requirement. Response rates for all measured responses initially increased with increasing force requirements, but then decreased with continued exposure. The second exposure series produced more stable response rate changes than the first series. The time-integral of force (area under the force-time curve for individual responses, which is proportional to energy expenditure for each response) increased with the increase in the force requirement. The C57BL/6J inbred strain generated average force output similar to CD-1 outbred stock mice trained on the same force requirements. C57BL/6J inbred strain mice differed from CD-1 mice in initial response rates (for all responses above threshold) and had lower response rates at the 16 and 32 g requirements resulting in lower total force output. These data show for both mice types that increased force requirements resulted in increased overall responding (all measured responses), which contradicts a punishment interpretation of criterion response decrements. C57BL\6 inbred mice showed individual differences comparable to the outbred CD-1 stock. C57BL/6 mice did not maintain responding as well at the higher force requirements, which may be due to their small body size and weight, compared to the larger and heavier CD-1 mice.

show abstract

“…The presence of an interaction suggests that response-force changes do not function simply as changes in response requirement (i.e., they do not simply change bias). An alternative explanation, suggested by Alling and Poling (1995), might be that increases in response force or response effort function as aversive events and reduce the value of the schedule of reinforcement. If the increases in force are thought of as punishing responding in some way, then they might be best regarded as subtracting from the effective reinforcement rates.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response Form, Force, and Number: Effects on Concurrent‐schedule Performance

Sumpter

Temple

Foster

1998

J Exper Analysis Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Six hens responded on concurrent variable-interval (key-peck) variable-interval (door-push) schedules of reinforcement in which the second-order (fixed-ratio) requirements on the alternatives (Experiment 1) or the required door forces (Experiment 2) were varied. The key-peck and door-push response (measured as fixed-ratio completion) and time data were well described by the generalized matching law. However, the manipulations of fixed-ratio requirement and required response force differed in their effects. The manipulations of fixed-ratio size affected the response and time measures differently, producing fairly constant, multiplicative biases only in terms of response allocation. It was argued that variations in fixed-ratio size necessarily change the time allocated to that response unit, and thus changes in time bias were not necessarily a fundamental effect of changing the ratio. In contrast, the changes in response bias were a fundamental result of changes in ratio size. The response-force manipulations produced similar bias shifts in terms of response and time allocation, but they appeared to combine with relative reinforcement rate to affect choice interactively. Specifically, behavior appeared to be biased towards the least effortful (i.e., key-peck) response, but the increases in door force had a larger effect on bias when the hens were making this response infrequently (on a lean schedule). The different effects of the fixed-ratio and response-force manipulations on concurrent performance were partially accounted for by the differing times required to complete each response unit under those manipulations, but this would not account for the interaction. The interaction would be consonant with increased response effort decreasing the effective value of the associated reinforcement schedule.

show abstract

The Effects of Differing Response‐force Requirements on Fixed‐ratio Responding of Rats

Cited by 53 publications

References 40 publications

Effects of response effort on self-control in rats

Effects of response effort on self-control in rats

Effects of Differing Response‐force Requirements on Food‐maintained Responding in C57bl/6j Mice

Response Form, Force, and Number: Effects on Concurrent‐schedule Performance

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About