Stimulus effects on concurrent performance in transition.
Unique stimuli tied to each choice cut the time needed for differential responding to show up when pay-offs shift.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at how extra cues change choice behavior when reinforcement rates shift.
They used two levers that paid off at different rates. Each lever had its own light color and tone.
The question: would those added stimuli help the learner notice and act on the new rates faster?
What they found
Differential stimuli cut the time needed for different response rates to appear.
Early in each switch, the cues made the learner more sensitive to which lever now paid better.
After long exposure the benefit faded, but the start was clearly faster.
How this fits with other research
BERRYMAELLIOTT et al. (1962) showed rats learn faster when S-D and S-delta differ more. The 1992 study moves that idea into concurrent schedules with humans and adds timing data.
Farber et al. (2017) later took the cue idea into classrooms. They inserted a quick identity-matching step and reduced overselectivity in kids. Both papers say: give the learner one more clear signal and discrimination speeds up.
Shull et al. (1967) found longer changeover delays bias choice toward the rich schedule. The 1992 paper keeps the same concurrent layout but swaps delay for added stimuli, showing a different lever you can pull to shape early preference.
Why it matters
When you teach a client to choose between two tasks or reinforcers, slap a unique color, sound, or picture on each option right away. The extra cue can cut the guess time and help the learner lock onto the better deal faster. Fade the cues later if you want, but use them early to speed the transition.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Six experimentally naive pigeons were exposed to concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules in a three-key procedure in which food reinforcement followed pecks on the side keys and pecks on the center key served as changeover responses. In Phase 1, 3 birds were exposed to 20 combinations of five variable-interval values, with each variable-interval value consistently associated with a different color on the side keys. Another 3 pigeons were exposed to the same 20 conditions, but with a more standard procedure that used a nondifferential discriminative stimulus on the two side keys throughout all conditions. In Phase 2, the differential and nondifferential stimulus conditions were reversed for each pigeon. Each condition lasted for one 5-hr session and one subsequent 1-hr session. In the last 14 conditions of each phase, the presence of differential discriminative stimuli decreased the time necessary for differential responding to develop and increased the sensitivity of behavior to reinforcement distribution in the 1st hr of training; during the last hours of training in each condition, however, the effects of the differential discriminative stimuli could not be distinguished from the effects of reinforcement distribution per se. These results show the importance of studying transitions in behavior as well as final performance. They may also be relevant to discrepancies in the results of previous experiments that have used nonhuman and human subjects.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1992.58-335