PSY 3103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Smart People

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3103
• Professor: Catherine Plowright

Document Summary

Is a rule that determines how often and under what conditions a response will be reinforced: reinforcement always depends on occurrence of response. It can also depend on # prior responses or time before response (ratio vs interval) The greater the response requirement, the longer the pause. Post-(cid:396)ei(cid:374)fo(cid:396)ce(cid:373)e(cid:374)t pause is (cid:396)eall(cid:455) a (cid:862)ha(cid:396)d to get sta(cid:396)ted o(cid:374) the (cid:374)e(cid:454)t (cid:396)atio (cid:396)e(cid:395)ui(cid:396)e(cid:373)e(cid:374)t(cid:863) pause. Responding brings the reinforcer closer: two pigeons: one on a vr schedule, one on a vi schedule. Every time vr bird is one response short, reinforcer set up so that next response by each bird gets reinforced. Each bird got 10 reinforcers per hour, but vr bird worked 5 times faster. Same is true for humans (raia et al. Nb: responses before time has elapsed prevent reinforcement danger of drh. If you can"t maintain high rate, then there is no reinforcer and behaviour declines until ultimately responses can cease altogether.