Abstract
The temporal generalization gradient produced by the peak-interval (PI) procedure reflects behavior under the control of positive reinforcement for responding after the criterial time, but shows negligible discouragement for early responses. The lack of consequences for premature responding may affect estimates of timing accuracy and precision in the PI procedure. In two experiments, we sought to encourage more accurate timing in pigeons by establishing an opportunity cost for such responding. Concurrent ratio and interval schedules of reinforcement reduced the dispersion of keypecking around the target time. A sequence of three response-rate states (low-high-low) characterized performance in individual trials. Opportunity cost substantially reduced the mean and standard deviation of the duration of the middle-high state that typically enveloped the target time, indicating improved temporal acuity. We suggest a model as a first-order approximation to timing with opportunity cost.
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E.A.T. is currently at Utah State University, Logan, UT. This research was supported by NSF Grant IBN 023682 and NIMH Grant 1R01MH0 66860 to P.R.K. We thank Matthew T. Sitomer and Lewis A. Bizo for their invaluable advice at early stages of this project, and Weihua Chen for analyzing the preliminary data. Randolph C. Grace and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on an early draft of this article. Portions of this research were presented at the 2005 meeting of the Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior and at the 2007 meeting of the Psychonomic Society.
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Sanabria, F., Thrailkill, E.A. & Killeen, P.R. Timing with opportunity cost: Concurrent schedules of reinforcement improve peak timing. Learning & Behavior 37, 217–229 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.37.3.217
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.37.3.217