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STUDIES OF WHEEL‐RUNNING REINFORCEMENT: PARAMETERS OF HERRNSTEIN'S (1970) RESPONSE‐STRENGTH EQUATION VARY WITH SCHEDULE ORDER
Author(s) -
Belke Terry W.
Publication year - 2000
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.2000.73-319
Subject(s) - reinforcement , matching law , schedule , session (web analytics) , operant conditioning , psychology , lever , asymptote , statistics , computer science , social psychology , mathematics , engineering , mechanical engineering , geometry , world wide web , operating system
Six male Wistar rats were exposed to different orders of reinforcement schedules to investigate if estimates from Herrnstein's (1970) single‐operant matching law equation would vary systematically with schedule order. Reinforcement schedules were arranged in orders of increasing and decreasing reinforcement rate. Subsequently, all rats were exposed to a single reinforcement schedule within a session to determine within‐session changes in responding. For each condition, the operant was lever pressing and the reinforcing consequence was the opportunity to run for 15 s. Estimates of k and R O were higher when reinforcement schedules were arranged in order of increasing reinforcement rate. Within a session on a single reinforcement schedule, response rates increased between the beginning and the end of a session. A positive correlation between the difference in parameters between schedule orders and the difference in response rates within a session suggests that the within‐session change in response rates may be related to the difference in the asymptotes. These results call into question the validity of parameter estimates from Herrnstein's (1970) equation when reinforcer efficacy changes within a session.