Being there on time: Reinforcer effects on timing and locating

Autor: Sarah Cowie, Michael Davison
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 113:340-362
ISSN: 1938-3711
0022-5002
DOI: 10.1002/jeab.581
Popis: In research on timing, reinforcers often are assumed to influence discrimination of elapsed time. We asked whether changes in choice used to measure timing arise because of joint control by elapsed time and reinforcers, rather than from the direct modification of control by elapsed time by reinforcers. Pigeons worked on a concurrent-choice task in which 1 response was 9 times more likely to produce a reinforcer, reversing between locations when 19 s had elapsed since the marker event. Across conditions, we manipulated the percentage of reinforcers arranged before the probability reversal from 5 to 95%. These changes in reinforcer percentages altered control by location-based elements of the contingency, but not by time-based elements. Choice was well described by a model that assumes that control by the contingency is weakened by generalization across the time and location of reinforcers, and that these generalizations become more likely at later times since a marker. These findings add to a growing body of research that suggests that reinforcers share the same function as other environmental events in determining how the environment controls behavior.
Databáze: OpenAIRE