Premium
CONCURRENT‐CHAIN PERFORMANCE: EFFECTS OF ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE TERMINAL‐LINK ENTRY FREQUENCY
Author(s) -
Alsop Brent,
Davison Michael
Publication year - 1988
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.1988.49-351
Subject(s) - duration (music) , link (geometry) , constant (computer programming) , statistics , schedule , variable (mathematics) , terminal (telecommunication) , matching (statistics) , mathematics , computer science , combinatorics , telecommunications , physics , mathematical analysis , acoustics , programming language , operating system
Six pigeons were trained in a concurrent‐chain procedure with constant variable‐interval 6‐s variable‐interval 12‐s terminal links. Five groups of conditions were arranged. Within a group of conditions, the duration of one initial‐link schedule was held constant and the duration of the other initial link was varied. The duration of the varied initial link was always longer than, or equal to, the constant initial‐link duration. The duration of the shorter initial link was varied across groups of conditions from 5 s to 70 s. The data from each group were well described by the generalized matching law. Sensitivity ( a ) to the terminal‐link entry ratio increased as the shorter initial‐link duration increased, but appeared to reach an asymptote at shorter initial‐link durations greater than 32 s. Terminal‐link bias did not change with changes in shorter initial‐link duration for the response‐allocation data, but showed a small increase with increasing shorter initial‐link duration for the time‐allocation data.