Shahan, T. A., Magee, A., & Dobberstein, A. (2003).
The resistance to change of observing.
Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
80, 273-293.
Observing responses produce contact with discriminative stimuli and
have been considered analogous to attending. Many studies have
examined the effects of reinforcement rate on the resistance to
change of simple operant behavior, but nothing is known about the
resistance to change of observing. Two experiments examined the
effects of primary reinforcement rate on the resistance to change
of observing behavior of pigeons. In Experiment 1, a multiple schedule
of observing-response procedures was arranged. In a rich component,
observing responses produced stimuli correlated with a high rate of
random-interval (RI) reinforcement or extinction. In a lean component,
observing responses produced stimuli correlated with a lower rate of RI
reinforcement or extinction. In both components, observing responses
produced the multiple-schedule stimuli on a fixed-interval 0.75-s
schedule. In Experiment 2, a similar procedure was used, but observing
in the rich and lean components produced schedule-correlated stimuli on
an RI 15-s schedule. Observing in the rich component occurred at a
higher rate and was more resistant to disruptions produced by presession
feeding and response-independent food deliveries during intercomponent
intervals. Despite more frequent observing during unsignaled periods
of extinction than unsignaled periods of RI reinforcement, observing
during extinction periods was less resistant to change. In addition,
replicating the usual result, responding on the food key was generally
more resistant to change in the presence of stimuli associated with
higher reinforcement rates. These results suggest that quantitative
descriptions of resistance to change derived with simple food-maintained
responding may be applicable to observing, and perhaps by extension,
to attending.
Key words: observing, resistance to change, reinforcement rate,
conditioned reinforcement, attention, key peck, pigeon