A method for analyzing changes in response efficiency.

Richman et al. (2001) wrote a how-to paper, not a treatment test.

They took one person’s minute-by-minute response totals and drew a cumulative line across the session.

The goal was to see if the line bends when work gets easier, not just when rewards stop.

The cumulative plot showed a clear bend downward after the 12th minute.

Session totals alone looked flat, so the dip would have been missed.

The bend flagged a drop in response efficiency, not a loss of reinforcement.

HERRICK (1965) taught us to scale cumulative records so rate changes pop; Richman et al. (2001) use that same scaling trick inside a single session.

Schaal (1996) plotted cumulative responses as a percent of the whole session to avoid time bins; the 2001 paper keeps raw minute marks, letting you read exact local speed.

Chandler et al. (1992) showed that most response curves rise then fall within a session. The new minute-level method gives you a ruler to measure where that peak lives in any one case.

You no longer need fancy software. Just add a cumulative column in Excel and graph it minute by minute. If the slope suddenly flattens, ask: did the task get harder, the materials change, or fatigue hit? Target that moment instead of waiting for a full session drop. It turns a single case into a real-time dashboard.