Operant conditioning occurs most rapidly when a reinforcer is given after every instance of a desired behavior.
This is called continuous reinforcement.
But B. F. Skinner realized that in the real world, reinforcement is not likely to happen after every desired behavior.
Reinforcement will occur less consistently and in different ways.
This is called partial reinforcement.
Skinner studied four basic schedules, or rules, of partial reinforcement:
fixed ratio, fixed interval, variable ratio, and variable interval.
To study these schedules and their effects on behavior,
B. F. Skinner developed the operant conditioning chamber that we usually call the Skinner Box.
In it, either a rat presses a bar or…
A pigeon pecks at a disk to receive food or some other reinforcer.
A separate device records the rats’ and pigeons’ responses on a continuous paper chart.
Let’s look more closely at each of these schedules of reinforcement.