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EFFECTS OF VARYING STIMULUS DISPARITY AND THE REINFORCER RATIO IN CONCURRENT‐SCHEDULE AND SIGNAL‐DETECTION PROCEDURES
Author(s) -
Alsop Brent,
Davison Michael
Publication year - 1991
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.1991.56-67
Subject(s) - reinforcement , stimulus (psychology) , schedule , computer science , psychology , stimulus control , speech recognition , artificial intelligence , cognitive psychology , audiology , neuroscience , social psychology , medicine , operating system , nicotine
The present study measured the effects of stimulus and reinforcer variations on pigeons' behavior in two different choice procedures. Two intensities of white light were presented as the stimuli on the main key in a switching‐key concurrent schedule and as the sample stimuli in a signal‐detection procedure. Under both procedures, the scheduled rate of reinforcement was varied across conditions to produce various ratios of obtained reinforcement. These ratios were obtained for seven pairs of light intensities. In the concurrent schedules, the effects of reinforcer‐ratio variations were positively correlated with the physical disparity between the two light intensities. In the signal‐detection procedure, changes in the reinforcer ratio produced greater effects on performance when stimulus disparity was very low or very high compared to those found at intermediate levels of stimulus disparity. This discrepancy creates a dilemma for existing behavioral models of signal‐detection performance.