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TEMPORAL CONTROL OF BEHAVIOR AND THE POWER LAW 1
Author(s) -
Lowe C. Fergus,
Harzem Peter,
Spencer Peter T.
Publication year - 1979
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.1979.31-333
Subject(s) - reinforcement , duration (music) , statistics , interval (graph theory) , mathematics , schedule , psychology , computer science , social psychology , physics , combinatorics , acoustics , operating system
The performance of rats and pigeons under fixed‐interval schedules was studied in two experiments. The duration of postreinforcement pause was a declining proportion of fixed‐interval duration. For pigeons this was true both when the duration of the reinforcer was fixed and when it was increased in direct proportion to increases in fixed‐interval duration; the longer reinforcer durations did, however, lengthen the postreinforcement pause at higher schedule values. A quantitative analysis of data from Experiments 1 and 2 and from other studies showed that fractional exponent power functions described the relationship between postreinforcement pause and fixed‐interval value; similar functions have previously been observed in studies of temporal differentiation. It was concluded that power functions reflect a direct causal, rather than artifactual, relationship between performance and the temporal requirements of reinforcement schedules.