Effects of a Limited Hold on Changeovers Maintained by Concurrent Interval Schedules of Reinforcement

Abstract

In order to investigate the effect of reinforcers occurring immediately after a changeover on the changeover behavior of pigeons, limited holds of various durations were placed on one of two concurrently available random- interval schedules. It was found that the limited hold generally had the effect of reducing the relative number of responses and the relative amount of time allocated to the schedule with the limited hold, and that this effect was primarily the result of an increased latency of changeover into the limited hold schedule. This tendency could be augmented by increasing the duration of a changeover delay from 2 sec. to 8 sec. Despite the fluctuations in behavior induced by these manipulations, response and time matching to relative rates of reinforcement prevailed. Implications for various hypotheses regarding the fundamental nature of the behavior maintained by concurrent interval schedules of reinforcement were discussed.