Compound Schedules of Reinforcement
Posted by Lisa Dillon on
Compound schedules of reinforcement:
- chained: the response requirements of two or more basic schedules must be met in a specific sequence before reinforcement is delivered; a discriminative stimulus is correlated with each component of the schedule.
- mixed: two or more basic schedules of reinforcement (elements) that occur in an alternating, usually random, sequence; no discriminative stimuli are correlated with the presence or absence of each element of the schedule, and reinforcement is delivered for meeting the response requirements of the element in effect at any time.
- concurrent: two or more contingencies of reinforcement (elements) operate independently and simultaneously for two or more behaviors
- tandem: a schedule of reinforcement identical to the chained schedule except, like the mix schedule, the tandem schedule does not use discriminative stimuli with the elements in the chain.
- alternative: provides reinforcement whenever the requirement of either a ratio schedule or an interval schedule – the basic schedules that makeup the alternative schedule – is met, regardless of which of the component schedule’s requirements is met first.
- multiple: a compound schedule of reinforcement consisting of two or more basic schedules of reinforcement (elements) that occur in an alternating, usually random, sequence; a discriminative stimulus is correlated with the presence or absence of each element of the schedule, and reinforcement is delivered for meeting the response requirements of the element in effect at any time
- conjunctive: this schedule is in effect whenever reinforcement follows the completion of response requirements for both a ratio schedule and an interval schedule of reinforcement.