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THE EFFECT OF SIGNALED REINFORCEMENT ON RATS' FIXED‐INTERVAL RESPONDING
Author(s) -
Reed Phil
Publication year - 2003
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.2003.79-367
Subject(s) - reinforcement , stimulus (psychology) , long term potentiation , audiology , schedule , psychology , signal (programming language) , neuroscience , social psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , medicine , receptor , operating system , programming language
Four experiments examined the effect on rats' response rate of presenting a brief (500 ms) stimulus simultaneously with the delivery of food on fixed‐interval (FI) schedules. In Experiment 1, reinforcement signals that were spatially diffuse (both tones and lights) elevated rates of responding, but responding was attenuated by localized visual stimuli. The remaining experiments examined the signal‐induced potentiation of responding. In Experiment 2, a tone reinforcement signal potentiated response rates on an FI schedule, but attenuated response rates on a variable‐interval (VI) schedule. This difference was obtained even though the overall rate of responding was equated on the two schedules before the introduction of the signal. Signal‐induced potentiation of responding occurred over a range of FI values employed in Experiment 3. In Experiment 4, presenting a reinforcement signal when high local rates of response had occurred immediately before reinforcement resulted in potentiated rates of responding on an FI schedule. The opposite effect on response rate occurred when the reinforcement signal followed only low local rates of response. These results indicate that a variety of factors influence the effects of a reinforcement signal. They imply, however, that the local rate of response at the time of reinforcement is a key factor in establishing the nature of the signaling effect.