Changeover delay and concurrent-schedule performance in domestic hens

Six domestic hens were exposed to a series of five pairs of two-key concurrent variable-interval schedules with a range of changeover delays from no delay to 15 s. Times spent responding on each alternative and total, within_, and post-changeover-delay response ratios were analyzed in terms of the generalized matching law. The sensitivity parameters, a, for response and time data were generally low when no changeover delay was programmed but were not 0.0. They were higher for all other changeover-delay values, with some tendency to increase as the changeover delay lengthened at very short delays. Within-delay responding was insensitive to reinforcement-rate differences at all changeover delays (a values close to 0.0). As a result of this insensitivity, post-changeover-delay responding was more sensitive to reinforcement-rate changes than was total responding. Interchangeover intervals increased systematically with changeover-delay duration. Responding, particularly after the changeover delay, was well predicted by an equation based on a reinforcer-loss model.