scholarly journals Conditional probability of reinforcement and sequential behavior in human conditioning with intermittent reinforcement schedules

1969 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. Prokasy ◽  
Karol L. Kumpfer
1975 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 999-1006
Author(s):  
B. Michael Quirt ◽  
Jerome S. Cohen

Rats were trained to bar press for food reinforcement in a two-bar multiple fixed-ratio situation. After the animal had established asymptotic rates of time for transferring between bars and responding on each bar, responding on one bar led to no reinforcement or random intermittent (50%) reinforcement. Responding on a second bar was always reinforced. Under both schedules of reinforcement, rats decreased their time to transfer to the second bar and their time to respond on the second bar. All animals also displayed an initial disruption of transfer back to and responses on the first bar. For rats on the intermittent reinforcement schedule, the decreased response time on the reinforced bar was primarily found after nonreinforcement of response to the previous bar. Reinforcement schedules for response to the first bar did not differentially affect the above behavior.


1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Primus ◽  
Gary Thompson

An operant conditioning discrimination paradigm was evaluated in terms of relationships between response behavior of young children and two stimulus components of the paradigm, the discriminative stimulus (DS) and the reinforcing stimulus (RS). Experiment I measured response performance in normal 1-year-old subjects as a function of differences in intensity and/or complexity among three DSs. Results showed no significant differences in conditioning rate, habituation, or consistency of the conditioned response relative to variable properties of the DS. Experiment II examined response performance of normal 2-year-old children as a function of two modifications in the RS, reinforcement schedule and reinforcement novelty. Subjects reinforced on a variable-ratio schedule of intermittent reinforcement and subjects reinforced on a 100% schedule demonstrated equivalent response habituation and consistency. In the second part of the experiment, subjects receiving novel RSs showed significantly greater response recovery than subjects reinforced with familiar RSs. Comparison of normal 1- and 2-year-old children revealed similar rates of conditioning and response consistency. However, 2-year-olds habituated more rapidly than 1-year-olds.


Author(s):  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Raoul Bell ◽  
Axel Buchner

Abstract. The present study serves to test how positive and negative appearance-based expectations affect cooperation and punishment. Participants played a prisoner’s dilemma game with partners who either cooperated or defected. Then they were given a costly punishment option: They could spend money to decrease the payoffs of their partners. Aggregated over trials, participants spent more money for punishing the defection of likable-looking and smiling partners compared to punishing the defection of unlikable-looking and nonsmiling partners, but only because participants were more likely to cooperate with likable-looking and smiling partners, which provided the participants with more opportunities for moralistic punishment. When expressed as a conditional probability, moralistic punishment did not differ as a function of the partners’ facial likability. Smiling had no effect on the probability of moralistic punishment, but punishment was milder for smiling in comparison to nonsmiling partners.


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