A COMPARISON OF DELAYS AND RATIO REQUIREMENTS IN SELF‐CONTROL CHOICE

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Abstract
In a discrete‐trial procedure, pigeons could choose between 2‐s and 6‐s access to grain by making a single key peck. In Phase 1, the pigeons obtained both reinforcers by responding on fixed‐ratio schedules. In Phase 2, they received both reinforcers after simple delays, arranged by fixed‐time schedules, during which no responses were required. In Phase 3, the 2‐s reinforcer was available through a fixed‐time schedule and the 6‐s reinforcer was available through a fixed‐ratio schedule. In all conditions, the size of the delay or ratio leading to the 6‐s reinforcer was systematically increased or decreased several times each session, permitting estimation of an “indifference point,” the schedule size at which a subject chose each alternative equally often. By varying the size of the schedule for the 2‐s reinforcer across conditions, several such indifference points were obtained from both fixed‐time conditions and fixed‐ratio conditions. The resulting “indifference curves” from fixed‐time conditions and from fixed‐ratio conditions were similar in shape, and they suggested that a hyperbolic equation describes the relation between ratio size and reinforcement value as well as the relation between reinforcer delay and its reinforcement value. The results from Phase 3 showed that subjects chose fixed‐time schedules over fixed‐ratio schedules that generated the same average times between a choice response and reinforcement.

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