Controlling human fixed-interval performance

Abstract

Both high and relatively constant rates of responding without post-reinforcement pauses and lower rates with pauses after reinforcement are produced by human subjects under fixed-interval (FI) schedules. Such FI rates and patterns may be controlled when subjects are provided with different histories of conditioning and different conditions of response cost (reinforcement penalties per response). Subjects with a conditioning history under ratio schedules typically produce high and relatively constant rates of responding under FI schedules; this responding does not change systematically with changes in FI value. In contrast, subjects with a history under schedules which produce little or no responding between reforcements [such as differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate (DRL) schedules] tend to pause after reinforcement and respond at low rates under FI schedules, whether or not they also have ratio conditioning histories; cost increases the likelihood of this type of performance. For DRL-history subjects, post-reinforcement pauses increase and response rates decrease as FI values increase.