Contributions of studying food accumulation with a parametric approach: A review

Abstract

The present paper reviews the advances achieved by studying “food accumulation” with a parametric approach. To this end, studies on food accumulation that investigated the effect of three parameters (delay of reinforcement, temporal distribution of trials, and magnitude of reinforcement) are described. These studies showed that the amount of food accumulated increases by lengthening the delay of reinforcement, and that such effect is more marked as the trials are spaced. Besides, it was found that the effect of the delay on food accumulation depends on the magnitude of reinforcement employed: with high magnitudes, lengthening the delay has an increasing effect; with low magnitudes, the typical decreasing effect of the delay of reinforcement is replicated. These findings show that the studies on food accumulation are simply a case of a study on delay of reinforcement with a high magnitude of reinforcement. Some implications from the findings obtained by studying food accumulation with a parametric approach are raised for the established knowledge on the effect of the delay of reinforcement, the temporal distribution of trials, and the magnitude of reinforcement.