Schedules of

Reinforcement
Psyc 220
Schedules of
Reinforcement
• Acquisition of new behavior and changes
in the rate and pattern of performance are
partly due to changes in reinforcement
contingencies.
• The rule describing the delivery of
reinforcement is called a schedule of
reinforcement.
 Acquisition of new behavior.
Measuring Learning
• Learning to ride a bike

Changes in which no new behavior appears or

an increase in the rate of behavior.
• Riding your bike every day

A reduction in the rate of a behavior.

• Not touching your bike for weeks

A change in the pattern of performance as

well as the rate.
• Learning to ride your bike on different terrains and how
to control speed to fit the terrain
 • A particular kind of reinforcement schedule
tends to produce a particular pattern and rate
of performance, and these schedule effects are
remarkably reliable.
• When a given schedule is in force for some
time, the pattern of behavior is very pre
• If different schedules are in force for different
Schedule kinds of behavior, the rates and patterns of
Effects behavior will reflect the different schedules.
• If a behavior is occurring at a steady rate and
the reinforcement schedule changes, usually
the behavior will change in predictable ways.
Opposite to continuous
can be called non
rienforcement
 The simplest of simple schedules is called
continuous reinforcement (CRF): Behavior is
reinforced every time it occurs.

If a rat receives food every time it presses a lever,

then lever pressing is on a continuous
Continuous reinforcement schedule.
Reinforcement:
Simple Schedules
A child’s behavior is on CRF if they are praised every
time they hang up their coat.

The opposite of CRF is extinction, which can be

thought of as a schedule of nonreinforcement.
 • When reinforcement occurs on some
Intermittent occasions but not others, the
behavior is said to be on an
Reinforcement: intermittent schedule.
Simple • Intermittent schedules are most likely
to happen more often in natural
Schedules settings. Most behavior is reinforced
on some occasions but not others.
• You might not always be able to
give praise to a child when they
hang their coat
• The vending machine might
not always work
 (Continuous reinforcement is actually a kind of fixed ratio schedule, then, and may be designated FR 1.)

Partial (intermittent) Reinforcement Schedules

• Fixed Schedule
• In a fixed schedule the number of responses or amount of time between
reinforcements is set and unchanging. The schedule is predictable.
• Variable Schedule
• In a variable schedule the number of responses or amount of time between
reinforcements change randomly. The schedule is unpredictable.
• Ratio Schedule
• In a ratio schedule reinforcement occurs after a certain number of responses have
been emitted.
• Interval Schedule
• Interval schedules involve reinforcing a behavior after a period of time has passed.
In a fixed ratio schedule (FR) a behavior is reinforced when it has occurred a fixed number of times.

A rat may be trained to press a lever for food. After shaping the behavior, the experimenter may switch to
a schedule in which every third lever press is reinforced. This would be a FR3 schedule.

This kind of schedule results in high, steady rates of responding. Organisms are persistent in responding
because of the hope that the next response might be one needed to receive reinforcement.

Free Drink cards or Lottery Games (a Three strike rule would be fixed ration punishment schedules)

Fixed Ratio (FR) Schedules

Variable Ratio (VR) Schedules
• Instead of providing a reinforcer when a behavior has occurred a fixed number of times,
it is possible to vary the requirement around some average.
• Instead of reinforcing every fifth lever press, we might reinforce after the second, then
after the eighth, then the sixth, the fourth, and so on. On such variable ratio (VR)
schedules, the number of lever presses required for reinforcement varies around an
average.
• In a VR 5 schedule, reinforcement might occur after one to ten lever presses, but the
overall average will be one reinforcement for every five presses.
• Examples for humans could be working on commission or slot machines—payout will
only happen on an average of attempts
Fixed Interval (FI) Schedule
An exact amount of time passes between each reinforcement.

Results in a tendency for organisms to increase the frequency of

responses closer to the anticipated time of reinforcement.
Immediately after being reinforced, the frequency of responses
decreases.
An example of a fixed-interval schedule would be a teacher giving
students a weekly quiz every Monday.
 • When the reinforcement is provided after a
random (unpredictable) amount of time has passes
and following a specific behavior being performed.
Variable • This schedule produces a low, steady responding
rate since organisms are unaware of the next time
Interval they will receive reinforcers.
• A pigeon in Skinner’s box has to peck a bar in order
(VI) to receive a food pellet. It is given a food pellet
after varying time intervals ranging from 2-5
Schedule minutes. It is given a pellet after 3 minutes, then 5
minutes, then 2 minutes, etc. It will respond
steadily since it does not know when its behavior
will be reinforced.
Response Rates • Ratio schedules – those linked to number of
of Different responses – produce higher response rates
compared to interval schedules.
Reinforcement • Variable schedules produce more consistent
behavior than fixed schedules; unpredictability of
Schedules reinforcement results in more consistent responses
than predictable reinforcement
Other Simple Schedules: Duration
• Fixed Duration (FD) Schedule
• Reinforcement is contingent on the continuous performance of a behavior for
some period of time, like when my mom used to make the practice the piano
for an hour each day before I could join my brothers playing outside.
• Variable Duration (VD) Schedule
• Reinforcement is contingent on performance of a behavior for some average
of time, like if my mom let me go play with my brothers after 10 minutes, 20,
minutes. Or 50 minutes.
Other Simple Schedules: Rates of Bx
Differential reinforcement of low rates of
Bx (DRL)
• behavior is reinforced only if a specified
period of time has elapsed since the last
performance of that behavior.
• DRL 10": rat that receives food for
pressing a lever on a DRL 10" schedule. It
receives food for pressing the lever but
only if at least 10 seconds have elapsed
since the last lever press resulting in only 6
lever presses per minute.
Differential Reinforcement of high rates of
Bx (DRH)
• Requires that a behavior be performed a
minimum number of times in a given
period.
• A pigeon might be required, for example,
to peck a disk five times in a ten-second
period. If it pecks fewer than fi ve times
during that period, it receives nothing.
• DRH schedules can produce extremely
high rates of behavior, higher than any
other schedule.
 Not common outside of
laboratory settings.

Noncontingent
Reinforcement
Schedules Fixed time or Variable
time schedules are
contingent on time rather
than Bx.
Stretching the Ratio
• It is like shaping, but in this case the trainer shapes persistence.
• The trainer might start with a continuous reinforcement schedule
and, when the animal is working at a steady rate, increase the ratio to
FR 3; when this schedule has been in force a while, the experimenter
may go to FR 5, then FR 8, FR 12, FR 20, FR 30, and so on.
• Rats will press levers and pigeons will peck disks hundreds of times for
a single reinforcer, even if that reinforcer is a small amount of food.
People have also been known to work steadily on very thin schedules
—schedules that require many responses for each reinforcement.
The tendency of behavior
that has been maintained
on an intermittent
schedule to be more Partial
resistant to extinction Reinforcement
than behavior that has
been on continuous Effect (PRE)
reinforcement.
Hypotheses About the PRE
• Discrimination Hypothesis
• Extinction takes longer after intermittent reinforcement because it is harder to distinguish (or
discriminate) between extinction and an intermittent schedule than between extinction and
continuous reinforcement. The frustration and sequential hypotheses are both variations of the
• Frustration Hypothesis discrimination hypothesis.
• Nonreinforcement of previously reinforced behavior is frustrating. Frustration is an aversive
emotional state, so anything that reduces frustration will be reinforcing.
• Sequential Hypothesis
• Attributes the PRE to differences in the sequence of cues during training.
• Response Unit Hypothesis
• This approach says that to understand the PRE we must think differently about the behavior
on intermittent reinforcement.
Complex Schedules
• Two or more simple schedules can be combined to form various kinds of complex schedules.
• When the schedules alternate and each is identified by a particular stimulus, this is a multiple
schedule.
• When the schedules alternate but there is no signal, this is a mixed schedule.
• In a chain schedule, reinforcement occurs only on completion of the last in a series of
reinforcement schedules, with each schedule change signaled by a change in stimulus.
• Tandem schedules resemble chain schedules except that there is no signal.
• A cooperative schedule makes reinforcement contingent on the behavior of two or more
individuals.
• In concurrent schedules, two or more schedules are available simultaneously, so that the
individual must choose among them.