PERFORMANCE ON CONCURRENT VARIABLE‐INTERVAL EXTINCTION SCHEDULES

Abstract

Six homing pigeons were trained on concurrent variable‐interval extinction schedules in a switching‐key procedure. The discriminative stimuli and associated schedules in operation were selected randomly after each switch and each reinforcer. More than 80 daily sessions were arranged in each of five experimental conditions that varied the reinforcer rate on the variable‐interval schedule. Behavior allocation remained nonexclusive even after extended training and did not change systematically as a function of the reinforcer rate. Both of these findings are predicted by a contingency‐discriminability description of choice and are incompatible with a generalized matching description.