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THE GENERALIZED MATCHING LAW DESCRIBES CHOICE ON CONCURRENT VARIABLE‐INTERVAL SCHEDULES OF WHEEL‐RUNNING REINFORCEMENT
Author(s) -
Belke Terry W.,
Belliveau Julie
Publication year - 2001
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.2001.75-299
Subject(s) - changeover , reinforcement , matching law , time allocation , operant conditioning , matching (statistics) , wheel running , interval (graph theory) , simulation , computer science , statistics , mathematics , psychology , social psychology , telecommunications , economics , combinatorics , medicine , management , transmission (telecommunications) , endocrinology
Six male Wistar rats were exposed to concurrent variable‐interval schedules of wheel‐running reinforcement. The reinforcer associated with each alternative was the opportunity to run for 15 s, and the duration of the changeover delay was 1 s. Results suggested that time allocation was more sensitive to relative reinforcement rate than was response allocation. For time allocation, the mean slopes and intercepts were 0.82 and 0.008, respectively. In contrast, for response allocation, mean slopes and intercepts were 0.60 and 0.03, respectively. Correction for low response rates and high rates of changing over, however, increased slopes for response allocation to about equal those for time allocation. The results of the present study suggest that the two‐operant form of the matching law can be extended to wheel‐running reinforcement. The effects of a low overall response rate, a short changeover delay, and long postreinforcement pausing on the assessment of matching in the present study are discussed.