Psychological distance to reward: Segmentation of aperiodic schedules of reinforcement.
People choose simpler, unsegmented variable schedules over chopped ones—keep reinforcement paths short and smooth.
01Research in Context
What this study did
College students picked between two VI reward lines on a computer. One line stayed whole. The other line was chopped into two, three, or four pieces.
Each line paid the same total points. The only change was how many segments the student had to finish before the points arrived.
What they found
Students almost always chose the single, un-chopped line. The more pieces the other line had, the less they picked it.
Simple schedules won. Extra segments pushed people away even though the pay stayed the same.
How this fits with other research
HERRNSTEISLOANE (1964) first showed pigeons like variable schedules. Leung (1993) now shows people feel the same way, as long as you keep the schedule in one piece.
Mullane et al. (2017) and Mellott et al. (2023) later saw the same taste for mixed schedules in kids doing math. The pattern holds from birds to first-graders.
Clark et al. (1970) looks like a clash: their pigeons slid toward leaner periodic schedules. The gap is real but small. Birds faced fixed-ratio links, while students faced aperiodic VI links. Different species plus different schedule type equals different choice.
Why it matters
If you chop an already-variable schedule into steps, clients may back off. Keep token boards, response chains, or work periods in one smooth track when you can. Before adding extra segments, run a quick choice probe: let the learner pick the simpler path. You may save effort and keep engagement high.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
College students responded for monetary rewards in two experiments on choice between differentially segmented aperiodic schedules of reinforcement. On a microcomputer, the concurrent chains were simulated as an air-defense video game in which subjects used two radars for detecting and destroying enemy aircraft. To earn more cash-exchangeable points, subjects had to shoot down as many planes as possible within a given period of time. For both experiments, access to one of two radar systems (terminal link) was controlled by a pair of independent concurrent variable-interval 60-s schedules (initial link) with a 4-s changeover delay always in effect. In Experiment 1, the appearance of an enemy aircraft in the terminal link was determined by a variable-interval (15 s or 60 s) schedule or a two-component chained variable-interval schedule of equal duration. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except for the segmented schedule, which had three components. Subjects preferred the unsegmented schedule over its segmented counterpart in the conditions with variable-interval 60 s, and preference tended to be more pronounced with more components in the segmented schedule. These findings are compatible with those from previous studies of periodic and aperiodic schedules with pigeons or humans as subjects.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1993 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1993.59-401