ADJUNCTIVE BEHAVIOR IN MULTIPLE SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT

A recent theory of timing (Killeen & Fetterman, 1988) suggests that adjunctive behaviors may act as discriminative cues for the passage of time and that the rate of transition between those behaviors is affected by the rate of reinforcement within the experimental context. Is the rate of transition between behaviors correlated with the rate of reinforcement? What is the context in which rate of reinforcement is calibrated? If rate of transition is correlated with reinforcement frequency, does this correlation change with extended training? Four pigeons were trained on multiple fixed-time schedules of reinforcement, with one component always FT 15 sec, the other either FT 15 sec, FT 45 sec, or FT 5 sec. Behavior was coded into one of 12 categories. Response distributions in the constant component shifted when rate of reinforcement was varied in the other component and eventually shifted back toward their original location.