Responding of pigeons under variable-interval schedules of signaled-delayed reinforcement: effects of delay-signal...

Two experiments with pigeons examined the relation of the duration of a signal for delay ("delay signal") to rates of key pecking. The first employed a multiple schedule comprised of two components with equal variable-interval 60-s schedules of 27-s delayed food reinforcement. In one component, a short (0.5-s) delay signal, presented immediately following the key peck that began the delay, was increased in duration across phases; in the second component the delay signal initially was equal to the length of the programmed delay (27 s) and was decreased across phases. Response rates prior to delays were an increasing function of delay-signal duration. As the delay signal was decreased in duration, response rates were generally higher than those obtained under identical delay-signal durations as the signal was increased in duration. In Experiment 2 a single variable-interval 60-s schedule of 27-s delayed reinforcement was used. Delay-signal durations were again increased gradually across phases. As in Experiment 1, response rates increased as the delay-signal duration was increased. Following the phase during which the signal lasted the entire delay, shorter delay-signal-duration conditions were introduced abruptly, rather than gradually as in Experiment 1, to determine whether the gradual shortening of the delay signal accounted for the differences observed in response rates under identical delay-signal conditions in Experiment 1. Response rates obtained during the second exposures to the conditions with shorter signals were higher than those observed under identical conditions as the signal duration was increased, as in Experiment 1. In both experiments, rates and patterns of responding during delays varied greatly across subjects and were not systematically related to delay-signal durations. The effects of the delay signal may be related to the signal's role as a discriminative stimulus for adventitiously reinforced intradelay behavior, or the delay signal may have served as a conditioned reinforcer by virtue of the temporal relation between it and presentation of food.