The effects of a negative contingency between response rate and reinforcement rate on rate of responding

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Debra Jean Spear (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Richard L. Shull

Abstract: If the molar dependency between response rate and reinforcement rate can affect response rates, then responding should decrease when subjects are presented with a schedule which produces a negative contingency between response and reinforcement rates. Six pigeons were presented with concurrent linear variable-interval schedules with equal rates of reinforcement on the keys and where uncollected reinforcements were stored while the schedule progressed. This schedule results in a near zero correlation between response rate and reinforcement rate. During some conditions reinforcements were subtracted from the store when a fixed number of responses occurred on one of the keys, resulting in a negative correlation between response and reinforcement rates. Three variable-interval values, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, and 60 seconds, and four subtractive fixed ratio values, 5, 10, 20, and 60 were studied. An effective molar contingency should have produced a response distribution where responding was lowest on the subtractive fixed ratio component, but response rates remained equal on both keys.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 1987
Subjects
Response consistency
Psychology $x Experiments
Psychology $x Research

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