Contingency discriminability and peak shift in concurrent schedules.

Full Abstract

We investigated the effects of discriminative stimuli on choice in a highly variable environment using a procedure in which multiple two-key concurrent VI VI components changed every 10 reinforcers and were signaled by differential flashes of red and yellow keylights. Across conditions, five pigeons were exposed to a number of different combinations of the following component reinforcer ratios:
27:1, 9:1, 3:1, 1:1, 1:3, 1:9, 1:27. Overall, there was clear control by the component signals in that preference, early in components and particularly before any reinforcers had been delivered, was ordinally related to the signaled reinforcer ratios. In conditions in which only two components arranged unequal reinforcer ratios (e.g., 27:1 and 1:27) with the remaining components arranging 1:1 reinforcer ratios, preference before the first reinforcer in a component showed peak shift in that the most extreme preference did not occur in the unequal reinforcer-ratio components, but in 1:1 components further towards the ends of the stimulus dimension. The contingency-discriminability model (Davison & Nevin, 1999) was fitted to the data and provided an excellent description of the interactions between stimulus and reinforcer effects in a highly variable environment.

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Author information

Author/s: Krägeloh, Christian U (CU); Elliffe, Douglas M (DM); Davison, Michael (M);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Auckland City Campus, New Zealand. c.krageloh(-atsign-)auckland.ac.nz

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior (J Exp Anal Behav), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Jul; vol 86 (issue 1) : pp 11-30

Dates: Created 2006/08/14; Completed 2006/12/15; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 16903490, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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