Effects of Response-Reinforcer Relations on the Maintenance of Coordinated Responding Under Schedules of Simultaneous Reinforcement

Abstract

The effects of response-reinforcer relations on coordinated responding were investigated. Coordinated responding was defined as two lever presses, one by each rat that occurred within 500 ms of one another. Four conditions were arranged in an ABCB design. Coordinated responding was reinforced according to a fixed-ratio 6 (FR 6) schedule in Condition A. In Condition B, a response by each rat was required, independent of their temporal proximity, to produce water delivery under a variable-interval schedule. Condition C was a replication of Condition B, except that coordinated responding was required for reinforcer deliveries. All conditions involved simultaneous reinforcement, that is the rats received access to reinforcers at the same time. The results extended previous findings by demonstrating the requirement of coordinated responses to produce reinforcement affected both coordinated response rates and the proportion of such responses relative to the total responses in a session, in that both measures were higher in Conditions A and C than in Condition B. There also was control of the temporal distribution of coordinated responding by the type of schedule (FR or VI): A “break-and-run” pattern was observed under the FR schedule, and a constant response rate was observed under the VI schedule.