Reinforcer magnitude and resistance to disruption of forgetting functions and response rates.
Bigger reinforcers harden both response rate and memory against extinction and satiation.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team used a delayed-matching-to-sample task. Pigeons saw a color, waited a few seconds, then picked the matching key.
Some trials paid off big (rich VI 20-s), others paid small (lean VI 20-s). The birds never knew which was coming.
What they found
Rich rewards gave two gains at once. Birds pecked faster and remembered the sample longer.
When the researchers added extinction or pre-feeding, the rich-magnitude birds kept pecking and remembering far better than the lean-magnitude birds.
How this fits with other research
Harzem et al. (1978) saw the opposite: bigger pay made pigeons pause longer after each reward. The pause is real, but it is short. Once the bird starts again, the larger payoff now protects the response from extinction, exactly what S et al. found.
Tyrer et al. (2009) showed bigger sucrose volumes pushed progressive-ratio breakpoints higher. S et al. extend that idea: magnitude not only drives more work, it also shields memory and response rate from outside disruption.
Miller et al. (2025) swapped duration for magnitude: longer access to a toy beat out a small snack. Together the papers tell a simple rule—more of whatever the learner wants (food amount, food quality, or leisure time) equals stronger, longer-lasting performance.
Why it matters
When you thin reinforcement or add distractions, start with a bigger or better reward. A high-magnitude reinforcer buys you sturdier accuracy and flatter extinction curves, so you spend less time later rebuilding the skill.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present experiment investigated the effects of reinforcer magnitude on resistance to disruption of remembering and response rates. Pigeons were exposed to a variable-interval (VI), delayed-matching-to-sample (DMTS) procedure with two components (rich and lean, distinguished by differing discriminative stimuli and hopper presentation duration). Completion of a VI 20 s schedule resulted in DMTS trials. In a DMTS trial, a choice of one of two comparison stimuli resulted in food if the choice matched the color of the previously presented sample stimulus. Separable aspects of the forgetting functions (initial discrimination and rate of forgetting) were examined by determining accuracy across a range of delays. Response rates and accuracy were higher in the rich relative to the lean component during baseline, and were more persistent during disruptors (extinction and prefeeding). During DMTS trials, extinction decreased initial discrimination more in the lean than the rich component, but had no systematic effect on rate of forgetting. During prefeeding, the rate of forgetting increased more in the lean than the rich component, but initial discrimination was not systematically affected. These results show persistence of response rates and remembering are positively related to reinforcer magnitude. The type of disruptor also influences the way in which remembering is disrupted.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2014 · doi:10.1002/jeab.86