THE DETERMINANTS OF POSTREINFORCEMENT PAUSING

Pigeons typically pause following food presentation on schedules that program food at regular intervals. These postreinforcement pauses (prp s) are a constant proportion of the interfood interval (IFI). Wynne an d Staddon (1 988) proposed one-back linear waiting as an account for p ostreinforcement pausing, or waiting time, as they called it, on respo nse-initiated-delay schedules. Moreover, they implied that the same pr ocess could account for the prp on all fixed-interval schedules. This study examined prp performance of pigeons on two chained schedules of reinforcement, one with cyclically-changing IFIs and one in which the IFI was constant. The results provide support for the linear waiting h ypothesis and replicate the findings of Innis et al. (1993) who examin ed performance on similar chained schedules.