The copyist model of response emission

Abstract

The variety of different performances maintained by schedules of reinforcement complicates comprehensive model creation. The present account assumes the simpler goal of modeling the performances of only variable reinforcement schedules because they tend to maintain steady response rates over time. The model presented assumes that rate is determined by the mean of interresponse times (time between two responses) between successive reinforcers, averaged so that their contribution to that mean diminishes exponentially with distance from reinforcement. To respond, the model randomly selects an interresponse time from the last 300 of these mean interresponse times, the selection likelihood arranged so that the proportion of session time spent emitting each of these 300 interresponse times is the same. This interresponse time defines the mean of an exponential distribution from which one is randomly chosen for emission. The response rates obtained approximated those found on several variable schedules. Furthermore, the model reproduced three effects: (1) the variable ratio maintaining higher response rates than does the variable interval; (2) the finding for variable schedules that when the reinforcement rate varies from low to high, the response rate function has an ascending and then descending limb; and (3) matching on concurrent schedules. Because these results are due to an algorithm that reproduces reinforced interresponse times, responding to single and concurrent schedules is viewed as merely copying what was reinforced before.