Time allocation on concurrent schedules with asymmetrical response requirements.

The team set up two levers side-by-side.

Each lever paid off on its own clock.

One lever needed many presses. The other needed only one.

The animals could hop back and forth at any time.

The researchers watched where the animals spent their minutes, not just how hard they pressed.

Time followed the food, not the work.

When the left lever gave 70 % of the snacks, the animals parked there 70 % of the time.

They stayed even when that lever took ten times more effort.

Response effort did not steer the clock.

Spealman et al. (1978) got the same lever-press matching with rats, so the rule crosses species and responses.

Santi (1978) swapped food for shock-avoidance timeouts and still saw matching, proving the rule holds for negative reinforcement.

Herrnstein et al. (1979) clouds the picture: on VI-VR mixes, pigeons that matched lost about 60 treats an hour.

Davison et al. (1984) say the VI-VR pattern can fool you; the schedule itself can push the numbers to look like matching even when the bird is not truly tracking ratios.

Together the set shows: time allocation equals reinforcement rate on simple VI-VI, but the story gets shaky once you add VR or ask what is best for the animal.

When you run concurrent teaching sessions, keep the reinforcer ratio front and center.

If you want a child to split time equally between reading and math stations, pay each station equally; don’t worry about one task being harder.

Watch out when one task pays on a ratio schedule—matching may appear but cost the learner valuable reinforcers.