The effects of number of responses on pause length with temporal variables controlled.
More responses required means a longer post-reinforcement pause, even when total time stays the same.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked a simple question. Does the bird pause longer after food just because the schedule makes it do more pecks?
They locked work time and the time between meals at fixed values. Only the required number of pecks changed across conditions.
With everything else held still, any change in pause length would come straight from the extra work.
What they found
Pause grew as the required pecks grew. Ten pecks gave a short break. Fifty pecks gave a long break.
Time and food timing stayed the same, so the number of responses alone drove the stretch.
How this fits with other research
Staddon (1970) saw the same longer pause when food lasted longer, not when more work was asked. K et al. now show the pause can grow even without longer food.
Lowe et al. (1974) ran a sister study the same year. They used bigger food instead of more pecks. Both teams found the same result: a longer pause. Together they prove pause length tracks the "size" of the reinforcer event, whether size is measured in food amount or in work count.
Charlop et al. (1990) later used VR schedules and saw pauses grow with larger ratios, but only when the reinforcer was small. Their data extend K’s finding to variable ratios and add a magnitude twist: once food is big, extra ratio no longer stretches the pause.
Why it matters
When you build a token board or set a response requirement, remember the break your client takes after the last response will grow with the size of the task. If you need quick momentum, keep the initial ratio small or deliver a high-value reinforcer to shrink the pause.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Start your client’s session with a short 3-token requirement; watch the pause shrink and momentum build.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
A change in the size of a fixed-ratio schedule involves a simultaneous change in number of responses, in time to complete the ratio (work time), and in the interval between successive reinforcements (interreinforcement interval). Previous studies have suggested the importance of work time and the interreinforcement interval in controlling the length of the post-reinforcement pause. The present study sought to determine whether number of responses is also a significant factor. Pigeons were trained on a multiple fixed-ratio x fixed-ratio 2 plus timeout schedule in which the size of the fixed-ratio x was manipulated. When the work times (Experiment I) or interreinforcement intervals (Experiment II) were equated for the two components, the pause before the fixed-ratio x was longer than the pause before the fixed-ratio 2 plus timeout. As fixed-ratio x size increased, the relative difference in the lengths of the two types of pauses also increased. Because the fixed-ratio x component contained a larger number of responses than the fixed-ratio 2 plus timeout component, the relatively longer pause preceding the fixed-ratio x indicates that number of responses played a significant role in determining the length of the post-reinforcement pause.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1974.22-115