Differential Outcomes Enhance Accuracy of Delayed Matching to Sample but Not Resistance to Change

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

Volume

35

Issue

1

Publisher

American Psychological Association

Publication Date

2009

First Page

74

Last Page

91

Abstract

Three experiments assessed the relation between the differential outcomes effect and resistance to change of delayed matching-to-sample performance. Pigeons produced delayed matching-to-sample trials by responding on variable interval schedules in two components of a multiple schedule. In the same-outcome component, the probability of reinforcement was the same for both samples (.9 in Experiments 1 and 2, .5 in Experiment 3); in the different-outcomes component, the probability of reinforcement was .9 for one sample and .1 for the other. In all three experiments, the forgetting functions in the different-outcomes component were higher and shallower than in the same-outcomes component. When total reinforcement was greater in the same-outcomes component (Experiments 1 and 2), resistance to disruption by prefeeding, intercomponent food, extinction, or flashing lights typically was greater in that component. In Experiment 3, when total reinforcement was equated, resistance to disruption was similar across components. Thus, the level and slope of forgetting functions depended on differential reinforcement correlated with the samples, but the resistance to change of forgetting functions depended on total reinforcement in a component. Both aspects of the results can be explained by a model of delayed matching to sample performance. Copyright 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

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Originally published by the American Psychological Association. Abstract available through remote link via PubMed. Subscription to the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes required to access article fulltext.

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