Variable-Interval Schedule Control Following Response Acquisition with Delayed Reinforcement

• Published in: The Psychological record Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 685 - 696
• Main Authors: Metzger, Barbara A, Lattal, Kennon A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Granville, Ohio, etc The Association for Behavior Analysis International 01-10-1998; Denison University, etc; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animal cognition; Behavior; Birds; Conditioned response; Learning; Pigeons; Psychology; Reinforcement (Psychology); Stimuli
• ISSN: 0033-2933; 2163-3452
• DOI: 10.1007/BF03395298

Four experimentally naive White Carneau pigeons acquired a key-peck response without specific response shaping or other training when such responding was reinforced according to a tandem variable-interval t-s differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior 30-s schedule. This schedule defined an unsignaled resetting delay-of-reinforcement procedure. When subsequently exposed to a variable-interval schedule of immediate reinforcement, response rates increased rapidly, usually within a single 90-min session. The response rates of the pigeons under this latter condition were comparable to those of other pigeons with a history of responding only on variable-interval schedules of reinforcement, with reinforcement rates and distributions yoked to the delay of reinforcement condition. Two other pigeons exposed to a schedule of response-independent food delivery, yoked in terms of food delivery rate to the tandem schedule, did not peck consistently and eventually stopped responding. The results suggest that the persistence of low-rate responding often reported in studies of behavioral history effects is not universal. Rather, it is a product of both experimenter-arranged and naturally occurring specific past and current contingencies.