The effects of concurrent responding and reinforcement on behavioral output.
Slowing responses on the rich side pushes more responses to the lean side, even when payoffs stay the same.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Pigeons pecked two keys at the same time. One key paid off every minute on average. The other key paid off every four minutes.
The team then slowed the birds’ pecking on the rich key. They wanted to see if that would make the birds peck the lean key more.
What they found
When pecking on the rich key dropped, pecking on the lean key rose. The lean schedule did not pay more; the birds just pecked it more often.
This shows that how fast the bird is already pecking one key can push its pecking on the other key.
How this fits with other research
Macdonald et al. (1973) showed that birds match their pecks to the payoff rate. The new study keeps the payoff rates the same but still shifts pecking by changing the bird’s own response rate.
Davison et al. (1989) found that extra payoff feedback did not change time spent on each key. That looks like a clash, but the 1989 study only added feedback lights; it never slowed the birds’ actual pecking. When response rate is directly lowered, as in the 1982 study, choice does move.
Hall (2005) later split “earning” from “getting” the food. That paper adds another layer: if the food is earned on one key but delivered on the other, the simple matching rule breaks. Together, the three studies tell us that both response rate and how food is earned matter, not just how often food appears.
Why it matters
If you run two tasks at once, slowing the easy task can boost the hard task without adding extra rewards. Try briefly raising the response cost on the high-rate task—maybe a thicker wrist weight during a preferred typing game—and watch if the learner shifts time to the low-rate task you want to grow.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Four birds key pecked on concurrent variable-interval one-minute variable-interval four-minute schedules with a two-second changeover delay. Response rates to the variable-interval one-minute key were then reduced by signaling its reinforcer availability and later by providing its reinforcers independently of responding. Each manipulation increased response rates to the variable-interval four-minute key even though relative reinforcement rates were unchanged. In a final phase, eliminating the variable-interval one-minute key and its schedule produced the highest rates of all to the variable-interval four-minute key. These results show that both reinforcement and response rates to one schedule influence response rates to another schedule. These results join those of Guilkey, Shull, & Brownstein (1975) in failing to replicate Catania (1963). Moreover, they violate the predictions of the equation for simple action (de Villiers & Herrnstein, 1976). In terms of a median-rate measure (reciprocal of the median interresponse time), rates to the variable-interval four-minute key were high when responding was not reduced to the variable-interval one-minute key and were low when it was reduced. This rate difference suggests a process difference between concurrent-schedule procedures that maintain high concurrent response rates versus those that do not. This process difference jeopardizes attempts to integrate single- and concurrent-operant performances within a single formulation.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1982 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1982.38-125