Accession Number:

AD0607325

Title:

A FIXED EFFORT SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT.

Descriptive Note:

Technical rept. no. 5,

Corporate Author:

PRINCETON UNIV N J BEHAVIORAL SYSTEMS LAB

Personal Author(s):

• MORFIELD,Maxwell A.

Report Date:

1964-06-01

Pagination or Media Count:

128.0

Abstract:

The effects on conditioning performance and extinction of a Fixed Effort FE schedule of reinforcement were investigated. A FE schedule is programmed by requiring that the cumulative sum of the efforts of individual responses be larger than a pre-selected constant criterion specified in gram-seconds. The effort of a response is defined as the time integral of force of the response. The major findings reported in this study are a decrease in reinforcement rate as a function of the increased effort requirement per reinforcement an apparent inhibiting effect of high effort requirements on effort per response no effect of effort per reinforcement on resistance to extinction a significant increase in the variability of effort per response during extinction a significant difference between the effort distributions of the 60 gm. -sec. differentiation animals and the 60 gm. -sec. FE animals and a correlation between the direction and amount of change of effort per response from conditioning to extinction.

Descriptors:

• BEHAVIOR
• CONDITIONED RESPONSE
• PERFORMANCE(HUMAN)
• REACTION(PSYCHOLOGY)
• REFLEXES
• ENERGY
• SCHEDULING
• PROBABILITY
• PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
• PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
• CORRELATION TECHNIQUES
• RATS

Subject Categories:

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE