ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-257

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The present paper addresses the question of the form of the mathematical relation between the time until a delayed reward and its present value. Data are presented from an experiment in which subjects chose between hypothetical amounts of money available either immediately or after a delay (Green, Fry,&Myerson, 1994). Analyses of the behavior of individual young adults demonstrated that temporal discounting is better described by hyperbola‐like functions than by exponential decay functions. For most individuals, the parameter that determines the rate of discounting varied inversely with amount. Raising the denominator of the discounting function to a power resulted in better descriptions of the data from most subjects. Two possible derivations of the temporal discounting function are proposed, a repeated choice model and an expected value model. These provide theoretical interpretations for amount‐dependent discounting but amount‐independent exponent param

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-263

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In two experiments deviations from matching earned higher overall reinforcement rates than did matching. In Experiment 1 response proportions were calculated over a 360‐response moving average, updated with each response. Response proportions that differed from the nominal reinforcement proportions, by a criterion that was gradually increased, were eligible for reinforcement. Response proportions that did not differ from matching were not eligible for reinforcement. When the deviation requirement was relatively small, the contingency proved to be effective. However, there was a limit as to how far response proportions could be pushed from matching. Consequently, when the deviation requirement was large, overall reinforcement rate decreased and pecking was eventually extinguished. In Experiment 2 a discriminative stimulus was added to the procedure. The houselight was correlated with the relationship between response proportions and the nominal (programmed) reinforcement proportions. When the difference between response and reinforcement proportions met the deviation requirement, the light was white and responses were eligible for reinforcement. When the difference between response and reinforcement proportions failed to exceed the deviation requirement, the light was blue and responses were not eligible for reinforcement. With the addition of the light, it proved to be possible to shape deviations from matching without any apparent limit. Thus, in Experiment 2 overall reinforcement rate predicted choice proportions and relative reinforcement rate did not. In contrast, in previous experiments on the relationship between matching and overall reinforcement maximization, relative reinforcement rate was usually the better predictor of responding. The results show that whether overall or relative reinforcement rate better predicts choice proportions may in part be determined by stimulus condition

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-277

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Water budget of pigeons was varied to assess the dependence of risk‐sensitive preferences upon economic context such as has been reported for energy‐budget manipulations with small animals in behavioral ecology research. Fixed‐ and variable‐interval terminal‐link water schedules reinforced choice between equal variable‐interval initial‐link schedules arranged on two pecking keys. While keeping a severely restrictive budget the same across three phases of the experiment, a contrasting distinct ample budget was arranged in each. To mimic typical methods in behavioral ecology studies, in each ample budget a more than three‐fold increase in amount of water per reinforcer presentation was instituted simultaneously with significantly increased overall access to water. Total choice response rates plummeted in the ample budgets, and body weights either increased significantly or remained unchanged in different phases as expected by the nature of the different manipulations. Clear preferences for the variable‐interval schedule were found throughout the experiment, except for rare instances of key bias. The results agree with similar operant food‐reinforcement studies and extend conditions under which risk preference apparently does not depend up

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-299

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A behavioral economic model that explains the choice and allocation of work rate is used to predict performance patterns in three contexts: with single schedules, with concurrent schedules when total reinforcement is low, and with concurrent schedules when reinforcement increases. Performance in the three contexts is predicted to change in orderly ways depending on how the subject evaluates the reinforcers earned. Quadrant diagrams are used to generate reinforcer demand functions, work‐rate supply functions, and reinforcement‐rate expansion paths. Preference between reinforcers is viewed as being a variable, with preference reversing in some situati

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-313

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

These experiments examined the own‐price and cross‐price elasticities of a drug (ethanol mixed with 10% sucrose) and a nondrug (10% sucrose) reinforcer. Rats were presented with ethanol‐sucrose and sucrose, both available on concurrent independent variable‐ratio (VR) 8 schedules of reinforcement. In Experiment 1, the variable ratio for the ethanol mix was systematically raised to 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, and 30, while the variable ratio for sucrose remained at 8. Five of the 6 rats increased ethanol‐reinforced responding at some of the increments and defended baseline levels of ethanol intake. However, the rats eventually ceased ethanol‐reinforced responding at the highest variable ratios. Sucrose‐reinforced responding was not systematically affected by the changes in variable ratio for ethanol mix. In Experiment 2, the variable ratio for sucrose was systematically increased while the ethanol‐sucrose response requirement remained constant. The rats decreased sucrose‐reinforced responding and increased ethanol‐sucrose‐reinforced responding, resulting in a two‐ to 10‐fold increase in ethanol intake. Experiment 3 examined the substitutability of qualitatively identical reinforcers: 10% sucrose versus 10% sucrose. Increases in variable‐ratio requirements at the preferred lever resulted in a switch in lever preference. Experiment 4 examined whether 10% ethanol mix substituted for 5% ethanol mix, with increasing variable‐ratio requirements of the 5% ethanol. All rats eventually responded predominantly for the 10% ethanol mix, but total amount of ethanol consumed per session did not systematically change. In Experiment 5, the variable‐ratio requirements for both ethanol and sucrose were simultaneously raised to VR 120; 7 of 8 rats increased ethanol‐reinforced responding while decreasing sucrose‐reinforced responding. These data suggest that, within this ethanol‐induction procedure and within certain parameters, demand for ethanol‐sucrose was relatively inelastic, and sucrose consumption was independent of ethanol‐sucrose consumption. Demand for sucrose, on the other hand, was relatively elastic, and ethanol‐sucrose readily substituted for it. The results are discussed in terms of applying a behavioral economic approach to relatio

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-331

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Several reports have indicated that drug consumption in self‐administration procedures is a function of the ratio of the instrumental requirement to the dose of drug, a quantity termed unit price. We evaluated three predictions from this unit‐price model in a reanalysis of data on opioid self‐administration in rhesus monkeys responding under a progressive‐ratio schedule (Hoffmeister, 1979). We evaluated whether consumption was inversely related to unit price, and compared the goodness of fit of an equation devised by Hursh, Raslear, Shurtleff, Bauman, and Simmons (1988) to that of a linear model predicting consumption as a function of dose. We also tested whether consumption was constant when the same unit price was comprised of different combinations of dose and instrumental requirement Consumption declined overall as unit price increased. The equation devised by Hursh et al. and the linear model based on dose fit the data equally well. Drug consumption was not uniform at a given unit price. The analyses suggest limits on the unit‐price model as a characterization of drug co

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-361

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-372

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The concepts of behavioral economics have proven to be useful for understanding the environmental control of overall levels of responding for a variety of commodities, including reinforcement by drug self‐administration. These general concepts have implications for the assessment of abuse liability and drug abuse intervention and the formulation of public policy on drug abuse. An essential requirement is the ability to compare the demand for different drugs directly in order to assess relative abuse liability, and to compare demand for the same drug under different environmental and biological interventions to assess their ability to reduce demand. Until now, such comparisons were hampered by the confounding effect of varying drug doses and potencies that prevent quantitative comparisons of demand elasticity—sensitivity of consumption and responding to the constraint of price (effort). In this paper we describe a procedure to normalize demand‐curve analysis that permits dose‐ and potency‐independent comparisons of demand across drugs. The procedure is shown to be effective for comparing drug demand within and across the drug classes. The technique permits a quantitative ordering of demand that is consistent with the peak levels of responding maintained by the drugs. The same technique is generalized for the comparison of other types of reinforcers under different biological c

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-373

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Some relations between elasticity of demand and the conditions of reinforcement are reanalyzed in terms of resistance to change, in ways suggested by the metaphor of behavioral momentum; some relations between resistance to change and the conditions of reinforcement are reanalyzed in terms of elasticity of demand, in ways suggested by behavioral economics. In addition, some data on labor supply in relation to variable‐ratio schedules and alternative reinforcement are reanalyzed in terms of resistance to change and compared with steady‐state resistance data for performance on multiple and concurrent interval schedules. The results of these studies can be summarized by two functions based on the behavioral momentum approach, relating relative behavioral mass to relative reinforcement per response or per unit time. The former is a relation between relative unit price and relative behavioral mass, suggesting the possibility of convergent measurement of a theoretical construct common to both approaches. However, the momentum and economic approaches differ fundamentally on whether it is preferable to construe discriminated operant behavior as selected and strengthened by its consequences or as part of a behavior‐consequence bundle that maximizes ut

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-385

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY