Schedules of Reinforcement

Abstract

This chapter provides an effort to describe how intermittent reinforcement operates to control behavior. Schedules of reinforcement are among the most powerful determinants of behavior. The ubiquity of schedule effects means that an understanding of how the scheduling of reinforcers determines performance is of fundamental significance. In ratio schedules, for example, presentation of the reinforcer depends on the execution of a certain number of responses, so that it is a formal requirement that this number of responses precede every reinforcer. In fixed-interval schedules, number of responses per reinforcer operates indirectly and its role must be inferred. Experiments studying the effect of fixed-ratio size on response rate consistently have confounded the direct effects of responses per reinforcer with the indirect effects of interreinforcer time. Schedules of intermittent reinforcement impose order on the numerous responses that occur between successive reinforcers: the behavior generated has a sequential organization.