Effects of reinforcement context on choice.
Reinforcement history changes choice only when the learner produces that history by responding.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team set up a lab chamber with two response keys.
Each key led to its own stream of food pellets.
Sometimes the stream ran only if the animal pressed.
Other times the same stream ran no matter what.
They watched how the animal split its time between keys.
What they found
When food came only after presses, the animal’s choice shifted toward the richer side.
When the same food came no matter what, choice stayed the same.
Only response-dependent histories moved the dial.
How this fits with other research
Koop et al. (1983) showed that timing grows out of response-shock gaps.
Feinstein et al. (1988) adds that the response must matter for the history to count.
Corrigan et al. (1998) found the same rule with people avoiding brief CO2 puffs.
When the gas came no matter what they did, pressing stopped.
Together these papers say the same thing across species: consequences steer behavior only if the learner’s own action produces them.
Why it matters
Check if your reinforcer is truly contingent.
If a client gets tokens, praise, or iPad time on a fixed clock, you may be running a response-independent context.
Shift to clear if-then delivery: press, request, or finish the task first, then the good thing comes.
You should see faster learning and steadier performance because the learner’s own response now writes the history that guides future choice.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Two experiments investigated the effects of successive reinforcement contexts on choice. In the first, concurrent variable-interval schedules of primary reinforcement operated during the initial links of concurrent chains. The rate of this reinforcement arranged by the concurrent schedules was decreased across conditions: When it was higher than the terminal-link rate, preference for the higher frequency initial-link schedule increased relative to baseline. (During baseline, a standard concurrent-schedule procedure was in effect). When the initial-link reinforcement rate was lower than the terminal-link rate, preference converged toward indifference. In the second experiment, a chain schedule was available on a third key while a concurrent schedule was in effect on the side keys. When the terminal link of the chain schedule was produced, the side keys became inoperative. Availability of the chain schedule did not affect choice between the concurrent schedules. These results show that only when successive reinforcement contexts are produced by choice responding do those successive contexts affect choice in concurrent schedules.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1988 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1988.49-367