Schaal, D. W. (1996).
Representing within-session response rates proportionally and entirely.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
66, 135-141.
In this technical article, methods for collecting and
representing response rates maintained by schedules of
reinforcement are presented. First, the time in a session that
each important event (e.g., responses, reinforcers) occurs is
collected and stored by a computer. Another computer program is
used, then, to convert each response to a percentage of the total
responses in a session and to plot these percentages cumulatively
as a function of the time in the session that they occurred. In
this manner, response rates may be expressed proportionally
(i.e., using the same y-axis scale regardless of absolute
response rate) without requiring the arbitrary selection of an
interval over which responses are aggregated and expressed
relative to the entire-session rate. A property of these records
is that deviations in the slope of the obtained record from the
diagonal, which connects (x, y) = (start of
session, 0%) to (x, y) = (end of session, 100%),
occurring at any point and for any duration, represent changes in
the local response rate from the entire-session rate. This method
of representing ongoing responding is illustrated by several
records of key pecking of a pigeon on a variable-interval 60-s
schedule of food reinforcement. Relative local response rates
were also computed from these data at several levels of
resolution (i.e., the time over which responses were aggregated),
including the level typically employed by those interested in
within-session changes in response rates.
Key words: within-session responding, variable-interval schedule,
response rate, pigeon, key peck