2014/09/12 by Sarah Cowie, Michael Davison, Douglas Elliffe · 4 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Psychology · #Behavioral and Psychological Studies #Sensory Analysis and Statistical Methods
paper · doi:10.1002/jeab.105
crossref issued 2014/09/12 · crossref published 2014/09/12 · crossref published-online 2014/09/12 · openalex publication_date 2014/09/12 · crossref created 2014/09/12 · crossref published-print 2014/11/01 · crossref deposited 2023/10/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
When the availability of reinforcers depends on time since an event, time functions as a discriminative stimulus. Behavioral control by elapsed time is generally weak, but may be enhanced by added stimuli that act as additional time markers. The present paper assessed the effect of brief and continuous added stimuli on control by time-based changes in the reinforcer differential, using a procedure in which the local reinforcer ratio reversed at a fixed time after the most recent reinforcer delivery. Local choice was enhanced by the presentation of the brief stimuli, even when the stimulus change signalled only elapsed time, but not the local reinforcer ratio. The effect of the brief stimulus presentations on choice decreased as a function of time since the most recent stimulus change. We compared the ability of several versions of a model of local choice to describe these data. The data were best described by a model which assumed that error in discriminating the local reinforcer ratio arose from imprecise discrimination of reinforcers in both time and space, suggesting that timing behavior is controlled not only by discrimination elapsed time, but by discrimination of the reinforcer differential in time.