Effects of rate of reinforcement-time upon concurrent operant performance.
Keep total reinforcer seconds constant and you can swap rate for duration while choice stays balanced.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Glynn (1970) worked with pigeons in a lab.
The birds pecked two keys that gave grain for different lengths of time.
The team kept the total grain seconds per minute the same, but changed how fast or how long each grain hopper stayed open.
What they found
The birds matched their pecks and their time to the grain seconds, not to the rate or the length alone.
If one side gave grain twice as long but half as often, the pigeons still spent half their time there.
How this fits with other research
Fantino (1969) had already shown that pigeons track expected time to food, not just food count.
Glynn (1970) extends that idea by proving you can trade rate for duration while the product stays the same.
Macht (1971) later removed the peck requirement and still saw the same time matching, a clean conceptual replication.
Reid et al. (1983) folded these findings into a review that says local grain seconds, not local peck rates, drive choice.
Why it matters
You can stretch or shrink reinforcer time without hurting response balance as long as the total seconds stay equal.
This saves you from hunting for extra edibles when a kid needs longer bites but fewer turns.
Next time you thin a schedule, keep the total access seconds steady and watch matching hold.
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Join Free →Measure total seconds of reinforcer access on each option; if you lengthen one, shorten the other to keep the product the same.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three experiments were conducted to investigate the theoretical reduction of rate and duration of reinforcement to their product, rate of reinforcement-time, under concurrent chain schedules. In Exp. I, rate of reinforcement-time was varied by varying rate of reinforcement delivery, holding duration of reinforcement availability constant; in Exp. II, rate of reinforcement-time was varied by holding rate of reinforcement delivery constant and varying duration of reinforcement availability; in Exp. III, rate of reinforcement-time was held constant by varying both rate and duration of reinforcement simultaneously and inversely. For all three experiments, both relative rate of responding and relative time spent in the initial link were found to match approximately the relative rate of reinforcement-time arranged in the terminal link. These data were interpreted as support for the notion that rate and duration of reinforcement may be functionally equivalent and reducible to a single variable, rate of reinforcement-time.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1970 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1970.14-269