ABSTRACT
Some years ago, Hodos and Trumbule (1967) reported an experiment under the title, “Strategies of schedule preference in chimpanzees.” Their procedures were interesting, partly because they demonstrated a method for dissociating the immediate consequences of behavior from longer term consequences relating to overall efficiency of performance. At the same time, one is led to wonder whether optimal performance on such procedures might occur in species less complex than the chimpanzee. Hence, the experiment to be described here was a replication, with monkeys, of the procedures devised by Hodos and Trumbule. The present empirical contribution is to show that monkeys and chimpanzees perform similarly on these procedures. One might also wonder whether the “strategies” discussed by Hodos and Trumbule require interpretations that differ from those invoked for more conventional studies of reinforcement and reinforcement schedules. In answer, we shall discuss the relevance of these experiments to current interpretations of choice and schedule preference as well as to foraging theory. In addition these experiments are used as a point of departure for identifying similarities between appetitively controlled and aversively controlled behavior.
