Choice between two-component chained and tandem schedules

Pigeons were trained on a two-key choice procedure in which a pair of equal and concurrently available variable-interval schedules (initial links) arranged entry into one or the other of two mutually exclusive schedules (terminal links) that ended in primary reinforcement. The terminal links were two-component chained or tandem schedules. Responses during the initial links were distributed equally on the two keys whenever the terminal links were associated with the same sets of interreinforcement intervals. Whether or not the terminal-link interreinforcement intervals were the same on the two keys, initial-link responding was affected by neither the presence nor relative durations of differentially signalled components within a terminal-link schedule. The simplest interpretation of these results is that initial-link responding is maintained directly by delayed primary reinforcement, rather than conditioned reinforcement afforded by the stimuli correlated with the terminal-link schedule components. This finding suggests that aspects of chained schedule performance usually attributed to conditioned reinforcement might best be reinterpreted in terms of delayed primary reinforcement and various discriminative functions served by the component-correlated stimuli.