title: A progressive-duration schedule of reinforcement.
abstract: We describe a schedule of reinforcement involving systematic, within-session increases in response-duration requirements. Rats received access to appetitive reinforcers for depressing and holding down a response lever. Duration requirements increased after each reinforcer delivery. Sessions ended when reinforcement criteria were unmet for a period of ten minutes. Breaking points, defined as the terminal duration requirement in effect prior to the end of the session, stabilized when environmental conditions were held constant. Breaking points were sensitive to manipulations of both food deprivation and reinforcer quality. Analogous to progressive-ratio schedules, progressive-duration schedules may provide an assay for measuring the amount of behavior an organism will emit for a given reinforcer under current motivational conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, United States.
authors.forename: Kara B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Gulotta
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, United States. Electronic address: t.byrne@mcla.edu.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Byrne
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000187:drug effects*; D005508:Food Deprivation; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000187:drug effects; D012055:Reinforcement Schedule; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology
keywords: Lever press; Progressive duration; Progressive ratio; Rats; Reinforcement