The study evaluated the effectiveness of superimposition and subsequent removal of a schedule of continuous reinforcement (CRF) as a rate-decreasing procedure in efforts to eliminate unwanted behaviors. Examination of lever-pressing patterns of eight male rats showed responding was substantially reduced during the superimposition of CRF but…

A dynamic model of how animals learn to regulate their behavior under time-based reinforcement schedules is presented. It assumes serial activation of behavioral states during the inter-reinforcement interval, an associative process linking the states and operant response, and a rule mapping the states onto response rate. (SLD)

Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of "The Behavior of Organisms" (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion…