Response duration is sensitive to both immediate and delayed reinforcement
Response duration is as sensitive to reinforcement as response rate, so you can shape how long a behavior lasts just as easily as how often it happens.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Byrne et al. (2019) worked with rats in a small lab chamber. The rats pressed a lever for food.
The team set two rules. Short presses earned food right away. Long presses earned food after a delay. The rats had to learn both rules in the same session.
What they found
The rats quickly matched their press length to each rule. When the rule asked for short presses, they pressed fast. When it asked for long presses, they held the lever down.
The change happened within minutes. Duration tracked the rule as cleanly as rate ever does.
How this fits with other research
Lecavalier et al. (2006) showed that rate follows the peak of the feedback function. Byrne adds duration as a second lever the environment can pull.
Herrnstein et al. (1979) found that time allocation is more stable than speed. Byrne proves duration can be shaped just as well as rate, so the two dimensions sit on equal footing.
Dardano (1971) taught pigeons to tell long from short lights. Byrne flips the task: the animal now controls the length of its own response. The same reinforcement tools work either way.
Why it matters
If you shape behavior only by counting responses, you may miss a faster route. Duration is easy to measure with a timer or pressure pad. Next time a learner rushes through a task, try reinforcing a longer, slower response instead of a set number of correct ones. You might get better quality with fewer trials.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We investigated the duration of lever pressing by rats when the delivery of appetitive reinforcers was contingent upon response duration. In the first experiment, response durations increased when duration requirements were imposed, and they decreased when duration requirements were removed. This effect occurred whether reinforcers were immediate or delayed by 8 s. In order to maintain the integrity of the delay intervals, reinforcer delivery was dependent upon both lever depression and release. In a second experiment, lever depression only and a response duration of at least 4 s were required for reinforcer delivery. Compared to immediate reinforcement conditions, delayed reinforcers increased both variability and the length of the maximum response durations. In a third experiment, immediate reinforcers were delivered contingent upon lever depression and release under a variety of duration requirements. Median lever-press durations tracked the contingencies rapidly. Across all three experiments, rats emitted numerous response durations that were too short to satisfy the reinforcer requirements, and bimodal distributions similar to those produced by differential reinforcement of low rate schedules were evident for most rats. In many aspects, response duration responds to reinforcement parameters in a fashion similar to rate of discrete responding, but an examination of this continuous dimension of behavior may provide additional information about environment-behavior relationships.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2019 · doi:10.1002/jeab.491