RUN-LENGTH, VISIT DURATION AND REINFORCERS PER VISIT IN CONCURRENT PERFORMANCE

The contingencies in each alternative of concurrent procedures consist of reinforcement for staying and reinforcement for switching. For the stay contingency, behavior directed at one alternative earns and obta ins reinforcers. For the switch contingency, behavior directed at one alternative earns reinforcers but behavior directed at the other alter native obtains them. In Experiment 1, responses on the main lever in S I, incremented stay and switch schedules and obtained a stay reinforce r when it became available. Responses on the switch lever changed Si t o S2 and obtained switch reinforcers when available. In S2, neither re sponses on the main lever nor on the switch lever were reinforced, but a switch response changed S2 to S1. Run lengths and visit durations w ere a function of the ratio of the scheduled probabilities of reinforc ement (staying/switching). From run lengths and visit durations. tradi tional concurrent performance was synthesized, and that synthesized pe rformance was consistent with the generalized matching law. Experiment 2 replicated and extended this analysis to concurrent variable-interv al schedules. The synthesized results challenge any theory of matching that requires a comparison among the alternatives.