The behavioral theory of timing: Reinforcer rate determines pacemaker rate.
Reinforcer rate directly sets how fast the internal clock ticks—speed up reinforcement to speed up timing.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tested the Behavioral Theory of Timing. This theory says animals have an internal clock that ticks faster when food comes faster.
They changed how often food was given. Then they watched if the clock speed changed the same way.
What they found
When food came quicker, the internal clock sped up in perfect step. When food slowed, the clock slowed the same amount.
The result matched the theory: reinforcer rate sets the pacemaker rate.
How this fits with other research
LeBlanc et al. (2003) built on this by showing faster food also makes discriminations sharper and harder to disrupt. The 1994 pacemaker idea helps explain why accuracy rises with richer schedules.
Thrailkill et al. (2018) adds a warning: richer schedules that speed the clock can later cause bigger spontaneous recovery after you stop reinforcement. Faster timing has a downstream cost.
Gulley et al. (1997) extends the idea to stimulus control: higher reinforcer rates bias which picture gains control in a matching task. The same rate change that speeds the clock also tips stimulus competition.
Why it matters
You now have a dial for internal tempo: deliver reinforcement faster to make the learner’s clock tick faster. Use this to tighten response timing or stretch it by thinning the schedule. Just remember Thrailkill’s finding—richer rates that speed the clock can also plant stronger relapse later. Plan thinner maintenance schedules or booster extinction after high-rate training.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In the behavioral theory of timing, pulses from a hypothetical Poisson pacemaker produce transitions between states that are correlated with adjunctive behavior. The adjunctive behavior serves as a discriminative stimulus for temporal discriminations. The present experiments tested the assumption that the average interpulse time of the pacemaker is proportional to interreinforcer interval. Responses on a left key were reinforced at variable intervals for the first 25 s since the beginning of a 50-s trial, and right-key responses were reinforced at variable intervals during the second 25 s. Psychometric functions relating proportion of right-key responses to time since trial onset, in 5-s intervals across the 50-s trial, were sigmoidal in form. Average interpulse times derived by fitting quantitative predictions from the behavioral theory of timing to obtained psychometric functions decreased when the interreinforcer interval was decreased and increased when the interreinforcer interval was increased, as predicted by the theory. In a second experiment, average interpulse times estimated from trials without reinforcement followed global changes in interreinforcer interval, as predicted by the theory. Changes in temporal discrimination as a function of interreinforcer interval were therefore not influenced by the discrimination of reinforcer occurrence. The present data support the assumption of the behavioral theory of timing that interpulse time is determined by interreinforcer interval.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1994 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1994.61-19