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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1974 Mar;21(2):215–221. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1974.21-215

Effects of response rate, reinforcement frequency, and the duration of a stimulus preceding response-independent food1

James B Smith
PMCID: PMC1333189  PMID: 16811739

Abstract

Food-reinforced key pecking in the pigeon was maintained under a four-component multiple schedule. In two components, responding was maintained at high rates under a random-ratio schedule. In the other two components, responding was maintained at low rates under a schedule that specified a minimum interresponse time. For both high and low response rates, one of the schedule components was associated with a high reinforcement frequency and the other components with a lower reinforcement frequency. During performance under these schedules, a stimulus terminated by access to response-independent food was periodically presented. The duration of this pre-food stimulus was 5, 30, 60, or 120 sec. Changes in rate of key pecking during the pre-food stimulus were systematically related to baseline response rate and the duration of the stimulus. Both high and low response rates were increased during the 5-sec stimulus. At longer stimulus durations, low response rates were unaffected and high response rates were decreased during the stimulus. For two of three pigeons, high response rates maintained under a lower frequency of reinforcement tended to be decreased more than high response rates maintained under a higher reinforcement frequency. In general, the magnitude of decrease in high response rates was inversely related to the duration of the pre-food stimulus.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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