A DECISION MODEL FOR STEADY-STATE CHOICE IN CONCURRENT CHAINS

作者：Christensen Darren R; Grace Randolph C^*

来源：Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2010, 94(2): 227-240.

DOI：10.1901/jeab.2010.94-227

• choice
• concurrent chains
• acquisition
• conditioned reinforcement
• decision model
• contextual choice model
• hyperbolic value-added model
• key peck
• pigeons

Grace and McLean (2006) proposed a decision model for acquisition of choice in concurrent chains which assumes that after reinforcement in a terminal link, subjects make a discrimination whether the preceding reinforcer delay was short or long relative to a criterion. Their model was subsequently extended by Christensen and Grace (2008, 2009a, 2009b) to include effects of initial- and terminal-link duration on choice. We show that an expression for steady-state responding can be derived from the decision model, which enables a model for choice that provides an account of archival data that is equal or superior to the contextual choice model (Grace, 1994) and hyperbolic value-added model (Mazur, 2001) in terms of goodness of fit, parsimony, and parameter invariance. The success of the steady-state ecision model validates the strategy of understanding acquisition phenomena as a bridge toward explaining choice at the molar level.

• 出版日期2010-9