Premium
CHOICE BETWEEN RELIABLE AND UNRELIABLE REINFORCEMENT ALTERNATIVES REVISITED: PREFERENCE FOR UNRELIABLE REINFORCEMENT
Author(s) -
Belke Terry W.,
Spetch Marcia L.
Publication year - 1994
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.1994.62-353
Subject(s) - blackout , reinforcement , preference , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , statistics , computer science , social psychology , cognitive psychology , mathematics , power (physics) , physics , electric power system , quantum mechanics
Pigeons' choices between a reliable alternative that always provided food after a delay (i.e., 100% reinforcement) and an unreliable one that provided food or blackout equally often after a delay (i.e., 50% reinforcement) was studied using a discrete‐trials concurrent‐chains procedure modified to prevent choice between alternatives following a blackout outcome. Initial links were fixed‐ratio 1 schedules, and terminal links were fixed‐time schedules. Stimuli presented during the terminal‐link delays were correlated with the food and blackout outcomes. In Experiment 1, terminal‐link durations were varied. With short terminal links (i.e., 10 s), 6 of 8 subjects showed strong preference for the 50% side. As terminal‐link duration increased to 30 s, preference, regardless of direction, became less extreme. In Experiment 2, the side‐key location of the 50% and 100% alternatives was reversed for 3 subjects. Preference for the 50% alternative reoccurred following the key reversal. When a 5‐s separation was subsequently interposed between the initial and terminal links for both alternatives, all birds reversed to a preference for the 100% side. In general, the strong preference for the 50% side was qualitatively consistent with the expectation that the procedure enhanced the conditioned‐reinforcement effectiveness of the food‐associated terminal‐link stimulus on the 50% side. Implications of the results for various accounts of choice of the 50% alternative are discussed.