Fixed-ratio performance with and without a postreinforcement timeout.
A brief pause right after reinforcement shortens the wait before the next fixed-ratio run starts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Tanguay et al. (1982) asked a simple question: what happens if you give a short break right after each reinforcer on a fixed-ratio schedule?
They ran rats on FR schedules with and without a brief post-reinforcement timeout. Then they measured how long the rats paused before starting the next ratio and how fast they responded within the ratio.
What they found
The timeout cut the pause after reinforcement. Without the break, rats waited longer to start the next ratio.
Response times also shifted. Early in the ratio, rats responded faster after a timeout. The timeout seemed to reset the clock and get the next run moving sooner.
How this fits with other research
Catania (1971) looked almost the same on paper: FR plus timeout. But that study used timeout after missed reinforcement, not after every reinforcer. The pause got longer, not shorter. The difference is timing: timeout after failure feels like punishment; timeout after success feels like a breather.
Davison (1969) mapped how response times speed up within a ratio. Tanguay et al. (1982) show that a quick timeout can kick-start that speed-up earlier.
Rider et al. (1984) later showed that pause length tracks the time between reinforcers. E et al. give clinicians a lever: insert a tiny timeout and you can shorten that pause without changing the reinforcer itself.
Why it matters
If your client stalls after each reinforcer on a token board or piece-work task, try inserting a 3-5 second break. Hand the token, pause the timer, then restart. The rat data say the pause before the next response drops, and the whole ratio finishes faster. One small procedural tweak, no extra tokens needed.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Pigeons pecked a key, producing food reinforcement on fixed-ratio (FR) schedules requiring 50, 100, or 150 responses. In each session, 30-second timeouts were inserted before a random half of the FR trials, whereas the other trials began immediately after reinforcement. In general, preratio pauses were shorter on trials preceded by timeouts. On these trials, the probability of a first response tended to be highest in the first 20 seconds of the trials, suggesting that the shorter pauses were the result of transient behavioral contrast. Direct observations and analyses of interresponse times (IRTs) after the preratio pause indicated that IRTs could be grouped into three categories: (1) IRTs of about .1 second, which were produced by small head movements in the vicinity of the key; (2) IRTs of about .3 second, which were produced by distinct pecking motions; and (3) IRTs greater than .5 second, which were accompanied by pausing or movements away from the key. At all ratio sizes, as a subject progressed through a trial, the probability of a long IRT decreased, whereas the probability of an intermediate IRT usually increased at first and then decreased. The probability of a short IRT increased monotonically across a trial. The results show that responding changes systematically as a subject progresses through a ratio on an FR schedule. Some characteristics of performance varied as functions of the absolute size of the response requirement, whereas others appeared to depend on the relative location within a ratio (i.e., the proportion of the ratio completed at a given moment).
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1982 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1982.38-143