Adjustment of behavior under concurrently available temporally defined schedules of different complexity

Abstract

Three rats were exposed to a concurrent schedule whose components delivered water according to different kinds of contingency arrangements: non-contingent, contingent and conditional-contingent. A fourth component never delivered water. Adjustment indexes for, and if included in, each contingency arrangement were calculated: differentiallity, effectiveness and accuracy. Two rats concentrated their activity in the noncontingent component but different differentiallity indexes were observed. For a third rat adjustment indexes in each component decreased with the complexity of contingency arrangements. For that rat differentiallity and effectiveness indexes between components also decreased. These results are discussed in the context of interbehavioral psychology and contrasted with those observed in previous studies in the experimental analysis of behavior.