Identify and define the four schedules of partial, or intermittent, reinforcement, and provide examples for each schedule.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

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The answer should contain the following information:

The four schedules of partial, or intermittent, reinforcement are fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval, and variable-interval schedules. In a fixed-ratio schedule, reinforcement is given only after a specific number of responses. For instance, a rat might receive a food pellet every 10th time it pressed a lever; here, the ratio would be 1:10. In a variable-ratio schedule, reinforcement occurs after a varying number of responses rather than after a fixed number. A good example of a variable-ratio schedule is a telephone salesperson's job. She might make a sale during the third, eighth, ninth, and twentieth calls without being successful during any call in between. Although the number of responses that must be made before making a sale varies, it averages out to a 20 percent success rate. Fixed-interval and variable-interval schedules focus on the amount of time that has elapsed since a person or animal was rewarded. Because a fixed-interval schedule provides reinforcement for a response only if a fixed time period has elapsed, overall rates of response are relatively low. One example of a fixed-interval schedule is a weekly paycheck. In a variable-interval schedule, the time between reinforcements varies around some average rather than being fixed. For example, a professor who gives surprise quizzes that vary from one every three days to one every three weeks, averaging one every two weeks, is using a variable-interval schedule.