FR5 and FR7

Our Goal:
On September 25, our goal was to put Peaches on a FR5 schedule of reinforcement.  On September 26, our goal was to put Peaches on a FR7 schedule of reinforcement.

A fixed ratio schedule is a reinforcement schedule in which a behavior is reinforced when it occurs a fixed number of times.  Therefore, on a FR5 schedule Peaches will have to press the lever at least 5 times in order to get a reinforcement and on a FR7 schedule Peaches will have to press the lever at least 7 times in order to get a reinforcement.

Procedure:
On September 25, the FR5 session started at 8:41 A.M and lasted 20 minutes and 48 seconds.  Peaches pressed the lever 390 times and received 78 reinforcements.  She weighed 215.4 grams, 3.4 grams above her target weight.

On September 26, the FR7 session started at 8:48 A.M and lasted 27 minutes and 4 seconds.  Peaches pressed the lever 599 times and received 86 reinforcements.  She weighed 214.9 grams, 2.9 grams above her target weight.

Results:

During the FR5 session Peaches put her head to press the lever many times in a row, continuing to press the lever until she heard the magazine sound.  Occasionally she would check the food hopper in between presses in order to see if there was a reinforcement waiting for her, when she saw there was nothing there she would continue to press the lever until she reached the reinforcement rate.  Peaches had much longer post-reinforcement pauses (PRP), which is a pause after a reinforcement is received.  She would explore the box more, usually going up to the glass or in a corner.

Peaches Learning FR5

During the FR7 session Peaches did a lot of the same things from her previous session, she would press the lever continuously at a rapid rate until she heard the magazine, she would roam around the cage for longer periods of time, and she was rearing on all over the cage.  Multiple times she would rear in front of the lever, not pressing it, and she would rear in the middle of the cage.  Megan and I thought this was due to frustration of having to press the lever more times in order to get a reinforcement compared to previous sessions.  But one thing that was very clear in this session was the fact that it was much easier to see that Peaches couldn't predict the number of times she needed to press the lever in order to get a reinforcement.  She just knew that she needed to keep pressing the lever until she heard the sound of the magazine.

Peaches During FR7 Post-Reinforcement Pause

Peaches Learning FR7

Peaches successfully completed both FR5 and FR7 schedules of reinforcement.

Cumulative Record for FR5

Cumulative Record for FR7

(If you look and compare the records you can see the longer PRPs in FR7. This session also lasted longer due to the number of reinforcements we wanted Peaches to reach before the session could end.)

Discussion:
Peaches is progressing through FR schedule of reinforcement training very smoothly.  She doesn't seem to be having a problem realizing that after a couple presses if a reinforcement isn't there that she needs to continue pressing the lever until she hears the magazine sound.  She is being much more active in the box after she gets a reinforcement, roaming and rearing all over the box.  We will continue to FR10 and once that is completed Megan and I have decided that we want to put Peaches on a variable schedule before extinction.  Peaches is amazing and we are very proud of her :)