Abstract
Cumulative records, which show individual responses in real time, are a natural but neglected starting point for understanding the dynamics of operant behavior. To understand the processes that underlie molar laws like matching, it is also helpful to look at choice behavior in situations such as concurrent random ratio that lack the stabilizing feedback intrinsic to concurrent variable-interval schedules. The paper identifies some basic, nontemporal properties of operant learning: Post-reinforcement pulses at the beginning of FI learning, regression, faster reversal learning after shorter periods, and choice distribution on identical random ratios at different absolute ratio values. These properties suggest that any operant-learning model must include silent responses, competing to become the active response; and response strengths that reflect more than immediate past history of reinforcement. The cumulative-effects model is one that satisfies these conditions.
Highlights
Cumulative records, which show individual responses in real time, are a natural but neglected starting point for understanding the dynamics of operant behavior
To understand the processes that underlie molar laws like matching, it is helpful to look at choice behavior in situations such as concurrent random ratio that lack the stabilizing feedback intrinsic to concurrent variable-interval schedules
The paper identifies some basic, non-temporal properties of operant learning: Post-reinforcement pulses at the beginning of FI learning, regression, faster reversal learning after shorter periods, and choice distribution on identical random ratios at different absolute ratio values. These properties suggest that any operant-learning model must include silent responses, competing to become the active response, and response strengths that reflect more than immediate past history of reinforcement
Summary
Cumulative records, which show individual responses in real time, are a natural but neglected starting point for understanding the dynamics of operant behavior. To understand the processes that underlie molar laws like matching, it is helpful to look at choice behavior in situations such as concurrent random ratio that lack the stabilizing feedback intrinsic to concurrent variable-interval schedules. The cumulative-effects model is one that satisfies these conditions Two months before his engagement to his cousin Emma Wedgwood, Charles Darwin wrote copious notes listing the pros and cons of marriage. In his famous matching-law experiment, to make his procedure work Richard Herrnstein added what is called a changeover delay (COD): neither response could be rewarded for a second or two after each change from one response to the other. If we want to understand how the pigeon works, we will be less interested in the steady state than in the dynamics: when we vary the pattern of reinforcements, how does the pattern of responses vary?.
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