Preferences for and against stimuli paired with food.
Stimuli paired with food lose their pull when they become common or stick around too long.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Scientists worked with pigeons in a lab. The birds chose between two keys.
Each key led to a colored light. Sometimes both keys led to the same light. Sometimes they led to different lights.
The colored lights were always followed by food. The team wanted to know if the birds liked the lights themselves, not just the food.
What they found
The birds only liked the light when it was rare. If the same light showed up on both sides, the birds soon ignored it.
When the light stayed on longer, its appeal faded faster. The value of the light was short-lived and depended on the situation.
How this fits with other research
Omino et al. (1993) showed that unique cues make delayed food more attractive. Ribes-Iñesta (1999) adds that the cue must stay unique; shared cues lose charm.
Green et al. (2003) swapped food for water and still saw preference flip with delay. The same rule holds across species and reinforcers.
Drifke et al. (2019) paired choice-making with better prizes and preschoolers later picked choice more. The same pairing trick works from birds to kids.
Vos et al. (2013) found some kids like choice, others don’t. Mixed results echo the bird data: value is not fixed; it depends on history and context.
Why it matters
Your client may love a sticker today and shrug tomorrow. The study warns that conditioned reinforcers wear off quickly, especially if they show up everywhere. Rotate tokens, sounds, or lights. Keep them scarce and tied to strong backup reinforcers. Check value often; don’t assume it lasts.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Swap your token type each week and track if the client still works for it.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Pigeons were presented with a concurrent-chains schedule in which terminal-link entries were assigned to two response keys on a percentage basis. The terminal links were fixed delays that sometimes ended with food and sometimes did not. In most conditions, 80% of the terminal links were assigned to one key, but a smaller percentage of the terminal links ended with food for this key, so the number of food reinforcers delivered by the two alternatives was equal. When the same terminal-link stimuli (orange houselights) were used for both alternatives, the pigeons showed a preference for whichever alternative delivered more frequent terminal links. When different terminal-link stimuli (green vs. red houselights) were used for the two alternatives, the pigeons showed a preference for whichever alternative delivered fewer terminal links when terminal-link durations were long, and no systematic preferences when terminal-link durations were short. This pattern of results was consistent with the predictions of Grace's (1994) contextual choice model. Preference for the alternative that delivered more frequent terminal links was usually stronger in the first few sessions of a condition than at the end of a condition, suggesting that the conditioned reinforcing effect of the additional terminal-link presentation was, in part, transitory.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1999 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1999.72-21