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Related Concept Videos

Timing and Consequences on Behavior01:08

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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. 
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Classical conditioning, as described by Ivan Pavlov, is a foundational concept in associative learning, where a neutral stimulus becomes capable of eliciting a conditioned response through association with an unconditioned stimulus. The process of acquisition, where this learning occurs, and the subsequent phenomena of contiguity, contingency, generalization, discrimination, extinction, and spontaneous recovery are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of classical conditioning.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 23, 2026

Three Laboratory Procedures for Assessing Different Manifestations of Impulsivity in Rats
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A model for food and stimulus changes that signal time-based contingency changes.

Sarah Cowie1, Michael Davison, Douglas Elliffe

  • 1The University of Auckland.

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
|September 16, 2014
PubMed
Summary

Brief stimuli enhance control by time-based reinforcer availability, improving timing behavior. This suggests timing relies on discriminating both elapsed time and reinforcer differences.

Keywords:
concurrent choicediscriminative controllocal choicemodelingpigeonsreinforcer ratesstimulitimingvariable-interval schedule

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral psychology
  • Animal behavior

Background:

  • Time serves as a discriminative stimulus when reinforcer availability is time-dependent.
  • Behavioral control by elapsed time is often weak.
  • Added stimuli can function as time markers to enhance temporal control.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the effect of brief and continuous added stimuli on time-based control of reinforcer differentials.
  • To investigate how added stimuli influence choice behavior when temporal relationships change.

Main Methods:

  • A procedure where the local reinforcer ratio reversed at a fixed time after the last reinforcer delivery.
  • Assessed the impact of brief and continuous stimuli on choice behavior.
  • Compared different models of local choice to explain the observed data.

Main Results:

  • Local choice was enhanced by brief stimulus presentations, even when stimuli only signaled elapsed time.
  • The enhancing effect of brief stimuli diminished over time since the last stimulus change.
  • A model incorporating imprecise discrimination of reinforcers in both time and space best described the data.

Conclusions:

  • Brief stimuli can improve behavioral control by time-dependent reinforcers.
  • Timing behavior is influenced by the discrimination of elapsed time and the reinforcer differential over time.
  • Imprecise discrimination in both temporal and spatial domains contributes to errors in timing behavior.