Abstract
Acquisition and maintenance of autoshaped keypecking with pigeons were studied as a function of immediacy of reinforcement. The basic design manipulated the immediacy of reinforcement following the trial onset while keeping the rate of reinforcement within the trial constant and manipulated the rate of reinforcement within the trial while keeping the immediacy of reinforcement constant. Seven groups of birds were studied at trial durations of either 24 or 60 seconds and immediacy intervals of either 3, 12, 24, or 60 seconds. All groups were exposed to a 180-s inter-food cycle. Acquisition rates varied as a function of the ratio of cycle to trial duration. Higher ratio groups (24 s) resulted in faster acquisition than did lower ratio (60 s). Immediacy of reinforcement exerted a less powerful effect upon acquisition than did the ratio of cycle to trial duration. During maintenance training, probability and rate of responding were positively related to immediacy of reinforcement and unaffected by trial duration. A modification of a scalar expectancy model was shown to account for these results.
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Cooper, L.D., Brownstein, A.J. Immediacy Of Reinforcement In Autoshaping With Pigeons. Psychol Rec 35, 353–364 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395857
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395857