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ON THE LAW OF EFFECT 1
Author(s) -
Herrnstein R. J.
Publication year - 1970
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.1970.13-243
Subject(s) - reinforcement , matching law , monotonic function , contrast (vision) , matching (statistics) , statistics , computer science , psychology , mathematics , social psychology , artificial intelligence , mathematical analysis
Experiments on single, multiple, and concurrent schedules of reinforcement find various correlations between the rate of responding and the rate or magnitude of reinforcement. For concurrent schedules ( i.e ., simultaneous choice procedures), there is matching between the relative frequencies of responding and reinforcement; for multiple schedules ( i.e ., successive discrimination procedures), there are contrast effects between responding in each component and reinforcement in the others; and for single schedules, there are a host of increasing monotonic relations between the rate of responding and the rate of reinforcement. All these results, plus several others, can be accounted for by a coherent system of equations, the most general of which states that the absolute rate of any response is proportional to its associated relative reinforcement.