Temporal regularity and stimulus control in multiple fixed interval schedules

Abstract

In multiple fixed interval schedules of reinforcement, different time intervals are signaled by different environmental stimuli which acquire control over behavior. Previous work has shown that temporal performance is controlled not only by external stimuli but also by temporal aspects of the task, depending on the order in which the different intervals are trained - intermixed across trials or in blocks of several trials. The aim of this study was to further describe the training conditions under which the stimuli acquire control over temporal performance. We manipulated the number of consecutive trials of each fixed interval (FI) per training block (Experiment I) and the number of FIs trained (Experiment II). The results suggest that when trained in blocks of several consecutive trials of the same FI, temporal performance is controlled by temporal regularities across trials and not by the visual stimuli that signal the FIs. One possible account for those data is that the temporal cues overshadow the visual stimuli for the control of temporal performance. Similar results have also been observed with humans, which suggest that temporal regularity overcomes the stimuli in the control of behavior in temporal tasks across species.