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CONCURRENT RESPONDING WITH FIXED RELATIVE RATE OF REINFORCEMENT 1
Author(s) -
Stubbs D. Alan,
Pliskoff Stanley S.
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1969.12-887
Subject(s) - changeover , reinforcement , schedule , statistics , mathematics , computer science , psychology , social psychology , telecommunications , transmission (telecommunications) , operating system
Responding by pigeons on one key of a two‐key chamber alternated the color of the second key, on which responding produced food according to a variable‐interval schedule of reinforcement. From time to time, reinforcement would be available for a response, but in the presence of a particular stimulus, either red or green light on the key. Red or green was chosen irregularly from reinforcement to reinforcement, so that a proportion of the total number of reinforcements could be specified for each color. Experimental manipulations involved variations of (1) the proportions for each color, (2) changeover delay, or, alternatively, (3) a fixed‐ratio changeover requirement. The main findings were: (1) relative overall rates of responding and relative times in the presence of a key color approximated the proportions of reinforcements obtained in the presence of that color, while relative local rates of responding changed little; (2) changeover rate decreased as the proportions diverged from 0.50; (3) relative overall rate of responding and relative time remained constant as the changeover delay was increased from 2 to 32 sec, with reinforcement proportions for red and green of 0.75 and 0.25, but they increased above 0.90 when a fixed‐ratio changeover of 20 responses replaced the changeover delay; (4) changeover rate decreased as the delay or fixed‐ratio was increased.