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. 1988 May;49(3):339–349. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1988.49-339

Concurrent schedules: Interaction of reinforcer frequency and reinforcer duration

Michael Davison
PMCID: PMC1338795  PMID: 16812544

Abstract

Six pigeons were trained on concurrent variable-interval schedules with unequal reinforcer durations for the two responses. The schedules arranged on the two keys were kept equal while they were varied in absolute size. As the overall reinforcer rate was increased, both response-allocation and time-allocation measures of choice showed a trend toward indifference, and measures of sensitivity to reinforcer-duration ratios significantly decreased. Recent reports have shown that the generalized matching law cannot describe the changes in behavior allocation under constant delay-, duration-, or rate-ratios when changes are made in the absolute levels of each of these variables. The present results complement these findings by demonstrating that the concatenated generalized matching law cannot describe the interactions of two reinforcer variables on behavior allocation.

Keywords: concurrent schedules, reinforcer frequency, reinforcer duration, generalized matching, preference, 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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