Psychological distance to reward in monkeys

Abstract

A concurrent-chains schedule was employed to examine crab-eating macaques' choice between segmented and unsegmented fixed-interval 30-s schedules. A stimulus change occurred during one of the fixed-interval schedules (segmented schedule), while no stimulus change occurred during the other (unsegmented schedule). The subjects were exposed to three consecutive stimulus-change conditions, in an attempt to explore whether correlation of the stimulus changes with a fixed interval of nonreinforcement affects the preference between the alternatives. When the stimulus change always occurred at a half point of the segmented schedule (the first and third conditions), all subjects preferred the fixed-interval schedule without stimulus changes. This replicated previous findings with pigeons and humans. On the other hand, when the intervals before and after the stimulus change varied on every entry to the segmented schedule with the sum of them being constant (the second condition), the subjects were indifferent to the alternatives. These results are consistent with the view that the preference for unsegmented schedules over segmented ones might be due to aversiveness which the initial component in the segmented schedule possesses as a result of its correlation with a fixed interval of nonreinforcement.