Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Variable schedules produce higher rates and greater resistance to extinction than most fixed schedules. This is also known as the Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE). The variable ratio schedule produces both the highest rate of responding and the greatest resistance to extinction (for example, the behavior of gamblers at slot machines).
In operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement. For example, if two response alternatives A and B are offered to an organism, the ratio of response rates to A and B equals the ratio of ...
As stated earlier in this article, a variable ratio schedule yields reinforcement after the emission of an unpredictable number of responses. This schedule typically generates rapid, persistent responding. Slot machines pay off on a variable ratio schedule, and they produce just this sort of persistent lever-pulling behavior in gamblers.
Variable-time schedules are similar to random ratio schedules in that there is a constant probability of reinforcement, but these reinforcers are set up in time rather than responses. The probability of no reinforcement occurring before some time t’ is an exponential function of that time with the time constant t being the average IRI of the ...
The most notable schedules of reinforcement studied by Skinner were continuous, interval (fixed or variable), and ratio (fixed or variable). All are methods used in operant conditioning. Continuous reinforcement (CRF): each time a specific action is performed the subject receives a reinforcement. This method is effective when teaching a new ...
Some people may use an intermittent reinforcement schedule that include: fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval and variable interval. Another option is to use a continuous reinforcement. Schedules can be both fixed and variable and also the number of reinforcements given during each interval can vary. [10]
For instance, Nevin, Tota, Torquato, and Shull (1990) had pigeons pecking lighted disks on separate variable-interval 60-s schedules of intermittent food reinforcement across two components of a multiple schedule. Additional free reinforcers were presented every 15 or 30 s on average when the disk was red, but not when the disk was green.
Melioration theory accounts for many of the choices that organisms make when presented with two variable interval schedules. Melioration is a form of matching where the subject is constantly shifting its behavior from the poorer reinforcement schedule to the richer reinforcement schedule, until it is spending most of its time at the richest ...