Children's lever-pulling rates under variable-interval percentage schedules

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Abstract

Twelve elementary-school children participated in a study on the effect of percentage in variable amounts of reinforcement under several variable interval schedules. They engaged in lever-pulling on a Lindsley manipulandum while exposed to “high” and “low” percentage schedules which were superimposed on a VI 5-sec schedule. Each child had 12 half-hour sessions, each session consisting of five components (baseline, acquisition, extinction, acquisition, and extinction). Six children spent all 12 sessions on two VI percentage schedules (13% and 40%), and the other six children spent their first six sessions on two percentage schedules and their last six sessions on two different percentage schedules formed from pairings of 26%, 50%, 74%, and 89%. Response rates were higher on the low-percentage schedule of each pairing in both acquisition and extinction. Intra- and intersubject replication occurred over all 12 children.

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  • Cited by (1)

    This research constitutes a portion of a dissertation submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. in Psychology at the Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary under the supervision of the second author. Portions of the data from this study were given at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, September 1974.

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