A test of the effectiveness of the differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedule.
DRL lowers response rate even when reinforcement stays the same.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Richardson (1973) tested whether a DRL schedule really lowers response rate.
The team used pigeons and rats.
They compared DRL to a VI schedule that gave the same amount of food.
What they found
DRL cut response rate even when both schedules paid equally.
The animals waited longer between responses under DRL.
This shows the schedule itself, not just less food, slows behavior.
How this fits with other research
REYNOLDS (1964) and FERRARO et al. (1965) had already shown DRL produces steady long pauses.
Richardson (1973) extends those works by adding a VI control, proving the pause is a DRL effect.
Dodd (1984) later showed pigeons can tell DRL from DRO rules, backing the idea that animals notice the contingency.
Why it matters
You now have lab proof that DRL alone, not reduced reinforcement, cuts rate.
Use DRL when you need fewer responses, not fewer reinforcers.
Pair it with equal reinforcer density to keep motivation high while still slowing the behavior.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Pigeons and rats were used in a yoked-control design that equated the reinforcement distributions of differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate and variable-interval schedules. Both a between-subjects design and a within-subjects design found response rate higher for the variable-interval schedule than for the differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedule, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate contingency. The interresponse-time distributions were unimodal for all subjects under the variable-interval schedule and bimodal for pigeons under the differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedule. The interresponse-time distributions for rats under the differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedule were also bimodal in three of four cases but the height of the modes at the shorter interresponse times were small in both absolute value and in relation to the height of the modes at the shorter interresponse times of the pigeons' distributions.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1973 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1973.20-385