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Reinforcement Schedules

Reinforcement Schedules

Positive reinforcement is a powerful method for teaching new behaviors to both animals and humans. B.F. Skinner demonstrated this with his experiments using rats in a Skinner box. When a rat pressed a lever, it received a food pellet. This immediate reward encouraged the rat to repeat the behavior. This method, where a reward follows every instance of the behavior, is known as continuous reinforcement. It is highly effective for establishing new behaviors quickly.
Once a behavior is learned,...

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Timing and Consequences on Behavior

In operant conditioning, the timing of reinforcement is crucial. For animals like rats and cats, immediate reinforcement (within a few seconds) is much more effective than delayed reinforcement. For example, a food reward for a rat needs to follow within 30 seconds of pressing a bar to be effective.
Humans, however, can respond to delayed reinforcers. We often make decisions between immediate small rewards and delayed larger rewards. This ability to delay gratification is a significant factor...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 30, 2026

Three Laboratory Procedures for Assessing Different Manifestations of Impulsivity in Rats

Three Laboratory Procedures for Assessing Different Manifestations of Impulsivity in Rats

Published on: March 17, 2019

Dynamic behavioural changes in the Spontaneously Hyperactive Rat: 3. Control by reinforcer rate changes and

Jonathan Williams¹, Geir Sagvolden, Eric Taylor

¹Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London, London, UK. johwilliams@gmail.com

Behavioural Brain Research

|October 1, 2008

Summary

Spontaneously Hyperactive (or Hypertensive) Rats exhibit reduced activity following unpredictable reinforcement schedules, supporting the hypothesis that unpredictability calms hyperactivity. This finding has implications for understanding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

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Area of Science:

Behavioral Neuroscience
Animal Models of Neurological Disorders

Background:

Traditional variable interval schedules are thought to produce steady response rates.
Unpredictability has a calming effect on individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if an animal model of ADHD, the Spontaneously Hyperactive (SHR) rat, shows reduced activity under variable interval schedules with unpredictable reinforcement timing.
To test the hypothesis that unpredictability decreases hyperactivity in SHR rats.

Main Methods:

Analysis of a large dataset of rat behavior (holepokes, tray-reports) in a variable interval reinforcement schedule.
Extraction of interval sequences based on reinforcement timing derivatives (rate, acceleration, jerk).
Comparison of behavioral responses to different interval sequences.

Main Results:

SHR rats demonstrated increased activity following richer, decelerating, and predictable reinforcement.
These results support the hypothesis that unpredictability reduces activity in SHR rats.
SHR behavior aligns with the Extended Temporal Difference (TD) model.

Conclusions:

The Extended TD model successfully accounts for SHR behavior and aligns with previous ADHD research.
SHR rats share similarities with ADHD children but exhibit reduced variability and faster actions.
Hyperactivity in SHR rats is highly sensitive to immediate environmental states, warranting further investigation.