INTER-REINFORCEMENT TIMES FOR THE BAR-PRESSING RESPONSE OF WHITE RATS ON TWO DRL SCHEDULES.

Two white rats pressed a bar for food on two different DRL schedules. DRL means differential reinforcement of low rate. The rat must wait a set time between presses or no food drops.

One schedule required a 10-second wait. The other required a 40-second wait. The authors simply recorded how long each rat waited between earned reinforcers.

The paper gives raw timing data. It shows the pattern of pauses that emerge under each DRL value. No training tips or treatment effects are reported.

Cruse et al. (1966) later looked at monkeys on DRL 20-s. They used computers to find tiny, repeating patterns inside the pause times. Their work extends this 1964 rat study by showing that even smooth-looking DRL data hides fine-grained structure.

BURNSTEIN et al. (1964) ran humans on a mixed DRL-DRH team game the same year. Their people learned the slow-fast difference, but only when each member got private feedback. Together the papers show DRL control works across species, yet group contingencies need extra help.

If you are shaping wait-time behavior, these early numbers give you a baseline to beat. Expect rats (and probably kids) to settle near the minimum pause once the schedule is clear. Use the 10-s and 40-s profiles to judge whether your learner's timing is typical or needs more shaping.