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Operant and alternative buttonpressing by college students on DRL and RR schedules of points reinforcement
Journal article   Open access

Operant and alternative buttonpressing by college students on DRL and RR schedules of points reinforcement

Edward A Wasserman, Gary W Schroeder and Michael W O’Hara
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, Vol.26(4), pp.319-322
10/1988
DOI: 10.3758/BF03337669
url
https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337669View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Male and female college students were given differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL) 5-sec and random-ratio (RR) 6 schedules of points reinforcement. Operant buttonpressing increased over six 4-min blocks of training under the RR schedule, but not under the DRL schedule. IRT/N distributions shifted toward shorter values under the RR schedule and toward longer values under the DRL schedule. Beyond these changes in operant behavior, subjects’ responding on four identical, but inoperative, buttons was differentially affected by the operant reinforcement schedules. Alternative buttonpressing decreased over training blocks under the RR schedule, but not under the DRL schedule. Furthermore, under the RR schedule, responding was greater on alterative buttons that were adjacent to the operant button; however, under the DRL schedule, responding was greater on nonadjacent buttons.

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