ABSTRACT
In chain schedules access to one link can serve to reinforce responses made in the prior link (Kelleher & Gollub, 1962). Further, the temporal distribution of primary reinforcers during the terminal link of a chain schedule affects the rate of responding in the initial link. For example, one temporal distribution of reinforcers during a terminal link might generate a high response rate during the initial link. Another temporal distribution might generate a lower response rate in the initial link. A third temporal distribution might generate a still lower response rate in the initial link; and so forth. If the schedule in the initial link is the same for these different terminal links, then the ordering of initial-link response rates may be interpreted as corresponding to the ordering of the conditioned reinforcing strength of the terminal links. This is so if the fundamental effect of reinforcement is assumed to be an increase in the emission rate of a response. Then if reinforcer A should maintain a higher rate of response than reinforcer B, other things equal, reinforcer A would be doing more strongly what reinforcers do. Two aspects of the temporal distribution of reinforcers have received particular attention, namely the rate of reinforcement during the terminal link and the delay to reinforcement timed from the onset of the terminal link (cf. Davison, Ch. 11). Our question here is whether or not we need to consider both aspects in order to understand the ordering of response rates in initial links of chain schedules.
