ABSTRACT
In concurrent schedules, subjects emit two or more operants, each one associated with a particular schedule of reinforcement. Quantification of the relation between behavior allocation and many independent variables (reinforcer frequency, amount, quality, and schedule differences) has been successful (de Villiers, 1977). However, quantification has been less successful in predicting behavior allocation when concurrent schedules provide a period of access to schedules (concurrent-chain schedules) rather than to single reinforcer events. The concur-rent-chain procedure was introduced by Autor (1969) in order to study “conditioned reinforcement” under the assumption that the reinforcers for concurrent- schedule performance were the stimuli associated with the terminal schedules. Concurrent-chain schedules have also been used to study delay of reinforcement in blackout (Chung & Herrnstein, 1967) without invoking the notion of conditioned reinforcement. Given the functional equivalence between discriminatively controlled schedules to reinforcement and delays to reinforcement (Moore & Fantino, 1975; Neuringer, 1969; Shimp, 1969; Williams & Fantino, 1978), the notion of conditioned reinforcement as an intervening variable seems redundant. Research in this area is thus generally concerned with quantifying the relation between initial-link or choice-phase behavior and the values and types of terminal-link schedules (in which term delays to reinforcers are included).
