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CONTINGENCYDISCRIMINABILITY AND PEAK SHIFT IN CONCURRENT SCHEDULES
Author(s) -
Krägeloh Christian U.,
Elliffe Douglas M.,
Davison Michael
Publication year - 2006
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.2006.11-05
Subject(s) - reinforcement , stimulus control , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , discriminative model , contingency , preference , statistics , cognitive psychology , social psychology , mathematics , artificial intelligence , computer science , neuroscience , nicotine , linguistics , philosophy
We investigated the effects of discriminative stimuli on choice in a highly variable environment using a procedure in which multiple two‐key concurrent VI VI components changed every 10 reinforcers and were signaled by differential flashes of red and yellow keylights. Across conditions, five pigeons were exposed to a number of different combinations of the following component reinforcer ratios: 27:1, 9:1, 3:1, 1:1, 1:3, 1:9, 1:27. Overall, there was clear control by the component signals in that preference, early in components and particularly before any reinforcers had been delivered, was ordinally related to the signaled reinforcer ratios. In conditions in which only two components arranged unequal reinforcer ratios (e.g., 27:1 and 1:27) with the remaining components arranging 1:1 reinforcer ratios, preference before the first reinforcer in a component showed peak shift in that the most extreme preference did not occur in the unequal reinforcer‐ratio components, but in 1:1 components further towards the ends of the stimulus dimension. The contingency‐discriminability model (Davison & Nevin, 1999) was fitted to the data and provided an excellent description of the interactions between stimulus and reinforcer effects in a highly variable environment.