[From Rick Marken (960403.0810)]
Bill Powers (960403.0400 MST) --
how can the "rate of food delivery" decrease if the response rate increases
and every response produces an immediate reinforcement? If you miss this
contradiction, you have been set up to accept as a fact the solemn
announcement that
At this point in the study all the rats are responding at high
rates
I was HAD because I did miss this contradiction. I imagined a situation like
this:
press-->timer-->food
I thought Bruce had set up the delivery mechanism so that each press would
add to the countdown value of a timer. The initial value of the countdown
would be zero, so at first a press would produce food immediately. It seemed
to me (in my head -- that's probably where I made my mistake;-)) that such an
arrangement would make it possible for the rat to slow the rate of food input
by increasing the rate of responding. I will now write a program to see if
this is possible or whether such a schedule is more like Asimov's
"thiotimoline".
Anyway, I'm happy to say that I was COMPLETELY HAD by Bruce's April Fool's
joke (and your own clever contribution to it;-)). I had no doubt that Bruce
had actually run the "rats pressing for less" experiment and I was busy
making up all kinds of explanations in my head for these results. I went for
it hook, line and sinker. It's nice to be an April Fool instead of just an
Old Fool for a change;-)
Best
Rick