Some determinants of remote behavioral history effects in humans.

Hirai et al. (2011) asked adults without disabilities to press a button for points.

First they worked under two old schedules: FR that paid every 5 presses, and DRL that paid only if they waited 11 s between presses.

Next the team switched everyone to the same FI 30-s schedule for many sessions.

Finally they flipped back to the old FR and DRL to see if the first history would wake up.

Right after the switch to FI, people with an FR past pressed fast and people with a DRL past pressed slow.

The difference faded the longer they stayed on FI.

When the experimenters brought the old schedules back, the fast-versus-slow pattern popped up again.

Remote history was sleeping, not gone.

Okouchi (2003) saw the same FR-fast, DRL-slow result on FI, so the 2011 study is a clean replication in humans.

Ley (2001) looks like a contradiction: rats lost the history effect after 80-100 FI sessions.

The rat study never returned to the original schedules; the 2011 team showed the history re-appears only when you probe with the old cues, so both papers can be right.

Ritchey et al. (2021) extends the idea: longer initial training makes behavior bounce back harder later, whether it is touchscreen swipes or button presses.

Your client may arrive with a hidden history of dense reinforcement or long waits.

Probe with brief reversals to see if old response speeds return; if they do, program extra practice on the new pace and thin the history schedule slowly.

Track data across setting changes—history can nap and then wake up when staff or tasks switch.