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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1995 Jan;63(1):33–51. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1995.63-33

Delayed matching-to-sample performance: Effects of relative reinforcer frequency and of signaled versus unsignaled reinforcer magnitudes

Dianne McCarthy, Philip Voss
PMCID: PMC1334379  PMID: 16812751

Abstract

Six pigeons were trained on a delayed red-green matching-to-sample task that arranged four delays within sessions. Matching responses intermittently produced either 1.5-s access to food or 4.5-s access to food, and nonmatching responses produced either 1.5-s or 4.5-s blackout. Two phases were conducted: a signaled phase in which the reinforcer magnitudes (small and large) were signaled by houselights (positioned either on the left or right of the chamber), and an unsignaled phase in which there was no correlation between reinforcer magnitude and houselight position. In both phases, the relative frequency with which red and green matching responses produced food was varied across five values. Both matching accuracy and the sensitivity of performance to the distribution of reinforcers for matching responses decreased with increasing delays in both phases. In addition, accuracy and reinforcer sensitivity were significantly lower on signaled small-reinforcer trials compared with accuracy and sensitivity values on signaled large-reinforcer trials and on both types of unsignaled trials. These results are discussed in the context of research on both nonhuman animal and human memory.

Keywords: delayed matching, relative reinforcer frequency, reinforcer magnitude, sensitivity, differential outcomes effect, response bias, memory, key peck, pigeons

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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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