Work

The Conditions for Temporal Tracking Under Interval Schedules of Reinforcement.

Year: 2004

Type: article

Abstract: On many cyclic-interval schedules, animals adjust their postreinforcement pause to follow the interval duration (temporal tracking). Six pigeons were trained on a series of square-wave (2-valued) interval schedules (e.g., 12 fixed-interval [FI] 60, 4 FI 180). Experiment 1 showed that pigeons track square-wave schedules, except those with a single long interval per cycle. Experiments 2 and 3 established that tracking and nontracking are learned and both can transfer from one cyclic schedule to another. Experiment 4 demonstrated that pigeons track a schedule with a single short interval per cycle, suggesting that a dual process--cuing and tracking--is necessary to explain behavior on these schedules. These findings suggest a potential explanation for earlier results that reported a failure to track square-wave schedules.

Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology Animal Behavior Processes

DOI: 10.1037/0097-7403.30.4.299

Authors: Elliot A. Ludvig, John E. R. Staddon

Institution: Duke University

Language: English

Topic: Behavioral and Psychological Studies

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health

Awards: Temporal Dynamics, G4406649935