Abstract
Human preferences for various fixed-ratio schedules were compared with a fixed-interval 30-sec schedule in 56 male and female subjects. Using counter points as reinforcers and a preference paradigm permitting interspecies comparisons, three experiments yielded data suggesting that schedule preferences reflect sensitivities to time-dependent and responsedependent variables, rate of reinforcement parameters, and the total number of responses emitted by the organism, in that order of importance. The importance of this technology for tests of Premack’s reinforcement principle and ascertainment of the positive or negative valence of reinforcement schedules is briefly discussed.
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This research was supported in part by Public Health Service Research Grants MH-08755 and MH-12025, Robert W.Schaeffer, principal investigator. These data were collected in collaboration with two former graduate students, G. D. King and S. C. Pierson, and were presented at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in San Antonio, Texas, November 1978.
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Schaeffer, R.W. Human preferences for time-dependent and response-dependent reinforcement schedules. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 14, 293–296 (1979). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329459
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329459