Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 17, 2025

Operant Protocols for Assessing the Cost-benefit Analysis During Reinforced Decision Making by Rodents
Published on: September 10, 2018
Discriminative control of choice by reinforcers in children and adults
Corina Jimenez-Gomez1, Carolyn M Ritchey2, Adam T Brewer3
1Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Abstract:
Research with nonhumans and human children has questioned the notion of the strengthening properties of reinforcers when choices are controlled by what reinforcers signal about upcoming events. We extended this work by developing and evaluating an automated task to evaluate the discriminative versus strengthening effects of reinforcers with two children of typical development (Experiment 1) and 18 university students (Experiments 2 and 3). Participants responded by touching one of two concurrently available images on a touchscreen. Across conditions, the probability that the next reinforcer would be delivered at the same location as the immediately preceding reinforced response varied with probabilities of .10 (switch), .50 (control), and .90 (stay). Both children and students responded according to the arranged reinforcer probabilities of the next reinforcer instead of where the most recent reinforcer had been delivered. The present findings add to the body of work suggesting that reinforcers serve a discriminative function, and we use a quantitative model of reinforcer misallocation to account for choices being imperfectly controlled by contingencies.
Related Concept Videos
Primary and Secondary Reinforcers
Effective reinforcers for humans vary depending on the individual and the context. Primary reinforcers, such as food, water, sleep, shelter, and pleasure, have inherent value and satisfy basic biological...
Operant Conditioning
Reinforcement in operant conditioning can be positive or negative, both of which serve to increase the likelihood of a behavior. Positive...
Timing and Consequences on Behavior
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...
Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement occurs when a behavior is followed by the presentation of a rewarding stimulus, increasing the frequency of that behavior. For example:
Generalization, Discrimination, and Extinction
Generalization occurs when a behavior reinforced in one context is performed in similar situations. For instance, a student who studies diligently for calculus and receives excellent grades might apply the same study habits to psychology and history, expecting similar results. Generalization shows how learning in one setting can influence behavior in...
Law of Effect
Edward Thorndike's foundational work involved studying learning in animals, particularly using puzzle...

