The control of choice by its consequences.
Past reinforcer rates silently steer current choice even when present payoffs are equal.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers worked with three pigeons in a small lab chamber. The birds faced two keys they could peck.
First, the team set one key to pay off more often. Later, they reversed it. They tracked which key each bird chose.
What they found
When the left key paid better in the first phase, birds pecked it more. When the right key later paid better, the birds switched.
Even when both keys paid the same at the moment, past payoff rates still guided choice.
How this fits with other research
Boudreau et al. (2015) saw the same pattern in kids. Children picked choice itself as a prize, but only while the payoff stayed equal. Once outcomes tilted, their preference flipped, just like the pigeons.
Lazar (1977) showed that special feedback lights can act as extra reinforcers. The 1997 study adds that the rate of those reinforcers across time also steers later choice.
Together, the papers say: consequences do not just strengthen the last response; they bank credit that can shift future choices even when the local payoff looks the same.
Why it matters
Your client’s history with a task matters as much as the current payoff. If a kid earlier earned lots of praise for table work, she may stay at the table even when tokens now come faster for play. Check the learner’s past reinforcement rates before you blame motivation. To reboot preference, run a brief phase where the new task pays off heavily, then watch choice swing.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Five pigeons were trained on concurrent variable‐interval schedules in which equal rates of reinforcement were always arranged for left‐ and right‐key responses, but different overall rates were signaled by key colors. Sessions began with both keys lit yellow for the instrumental phase. If, after 20 s of this phase, the relative number of responses that had been made to the left key equaled or exceeded .75, both keys changed red for the contingent phase. The contingent phase arranged another concurrent variable‐interval schedule for a further 20 s before the instrumental phase was reinstated. However, if preference in the instrumental phase did not exceed .75, the instrumental phase continued for a further 20 s before preference was again compared with the criterion. In Part 1, the reinforcer rate arranged in the instrumental phase was held constant at 4.8 reinforcers per minute, while the reinforcer rate arranged in the contingent phase was varied across conditions from 0 to 19.2 over five steps. In Part 2, reinforcer rates in the contingent phase were kept constant at 36 per minute, while reinforcer rates in the instrumental phase were varied from 0 to 36 over seven steps. Part 3 replicated Part 2 but used reinforcer rates in both phases that were one third of those arranged in Part 2. Measures of choice obtained by summing responses across presentations of the instrumental phase became more extreme toward the left key as the reinforcer rate obtained in the contingent phase was increased (Part 1) and as the reinforcer rate obtained in the instrumental phase was decreased (Parts 2 and 3). Changes in these measures of choice were accompanied by systematic changes in the relative frequency with which the criterion was exceeded. Changes in both these measures were correlated with changes in the relative frequency with which subjects responded exclusively to the left key. These results are discussed with respect to the two choices that were concurrently available in this procedure and the response alternatives that might constitute the concurrent operants in each choice.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1997 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1997.68-329