Reinforcement Delay Gradients of Retardates With a Concurrent Discrimination Task Procedure

Abstract

The learning failures of some retarded individuals may result from their particular vulnerability to commonly encountered delays of reinforcement. Delay gradients of individual Ss in the present study were assessed by a concurrent discrimination task procedure. Each S received interspersed trials on four tasks, each task associa-ated with one of the delays: 3, 6, 12, and 18 sec. Each of the 32 Ss was assigned to one of four trial-spacing conditions. The grouped data showed a u-shaped relationship between performance and reinforcement delay, with the most errors on the 3 and 18 sec. delay tasks. Delay of reinforcement appears to affect the proportion of correct responses during acquisition rather than the speed of learning. Few of the gradients of individual Ss resembled the group function. Delay gradient forms were, to some extent, related to trial-spacing conditions, stimulus factors, and characteristics of the Ss.