ABSTRACT
The term reinforcement is typically used to refer to hypothetical process with the label reward reserved for increases in instrumental responding and punishment for decreases in instrumental responding. This chapter aims to consider the current status of our attempts to predict the outcome of instrumental contingencies like those which we might wish to arrange for the gerbil. The addition of incentive motivation to the function served by the reinforcement process added a large and persisting area of research and theorizing to the reinforcement literature. The single-response base line phases used in the first experiment were not included as control conditions, largely because the reinforcement effects obtained in the first experiment were observed to exceed both the single- and the two-response base line. Various approximations to the yoked control procedure described can be found in some of the experimentation concerned with Premack’s theoretical position. The predictions made by Premack’s differential probability rules are quite clear.
