Schedules of reinforcement Flashcards
Continuous reinforcement
Provides reinforcement for every occurrence of the behaviour. Used for skill acquisition
Intermittent reinforcement
Progresses to naturally occurring reinforcement. Used to strengthen established behaviours.
Ratio
Require a number of responses before a response produces reinforcement.
Interval
Specific amount of time elapses and the response following this time produces reinforcement.
Fixed Ratio 4 (FR 4)
Reinforcement is delivered after every 4th correct response.
Fixed Interval 2 (FI 2)
Reinforcement is delivered for the first response after the 2 minutes have elapsed.
Variable Ratio 4 (VR 4)
Reinforcement is delivered an average of every 4th correct response.
Variable Interval 2 (VI 2)
Reinforcement is delivered for the first response after an average of 2 minutes has elapsed.
Abrupt increases in ratio requirements when moving from dense to thinner reinforcement schedules
Ratio strain
Increasing response ratio or duration of time interval
Schedule thinning
Reinforcement remains available for a finite time following the elapse of the FI or VI interval
Limited hold
The rate of responding typically is proportional to the rate of reinforcement received from each choice alternative.
The Matching Law
Two or more contingencies of reinforcement operate independently and simultaneously for two or more behaviours.
Concurrent
Two or more basic schedules of reinforcement alternating randomly, and a discriminative stimulus is correlated with each basic schedule.
Multiple
Basic schedules occur in a specific order and have discriminative stimuli for each.
Chained
