The Effect of Effort: An analysis of Killeen's (1994) Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorBizo, Lewis A.
dc.contributor.advisorFoster, T. Mary
dc.contributor.authorBjarnesen, Rebecca Claire
dc.date.accessioned2011-08-22T04:51:02Z
dc.date.available2011-08-22T04:51:02Z
dc.date.issued2011
dc.date.updated2011-04-08T02:27:23Z
dc.description.abstractMathematical Principles of Reinforcement (MPR, Killeen, 1994) is a mathematical model comprising three main concepts; an animal’s arousal to behaviour based on its motivation for a particular reinforcer, time and energy constraints on responding, and coupling between a response class and reinforcer. This experiment tested the ability of MPR to predict response rates when the minimum force requirement and topography of response was changed. Increasing the minimum force requirement was expected to increase the value of δ, the parameter related to response constraint. Altering the topography of the response was expected to also alter the δ value, as different response forms were expected to take different lengths of time to perform. There were four conditions; low force key, low force door, high force key and high force door, and 6 hens responded under each of these conditions in an ascending geometric series of Fixed Ratio (FR) values. It was shown that hens responded at a faster rate and to higher FR values when responding on the key than on the door, and for both apparatus, the hens stopped responding at lower FR values when weights were added. Unexpectedly, there were no statistically significant differences in the value of δ across conditions, but the values for a, meant to represent the animals’ arousal, did change. It was suggested that the changes in a reflected changes in the animals’ motivation to perform the different responses, probably due to rewarding or aversive properties of the operant response related to the different response forms.
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/zip
dc.identifier.citationBjarnesen, R. C. (2011). The Effect of Effort: An analysis of Killeen’s (1994) Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement (Thesis, Master of Applied Psychology (MAppPsy)). University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/5604en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10289/5604
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Waikato
dc.rightsAll items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
dc.subjectMathematical Principles of Reinforcement
dc.subjectConstraint
dc.subjectCoupling
dc.subjectArousal
dc.subjectPatterns of Responding
dc.titleThe Effect of Effort: An analysis of Killeen's (1994) Mathematical Principles of Reinforcementen
dc.typeThesis
pubs.place-of-publicationHamilton, New Zealanden_NZ
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Waikato
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Applied Psychology (MAppPsy)
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Thumbnail Image
Name:
thesis.pdf
Size:
2.36 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Main text
Thumbnail Image
Name: thesis.pdf
Size: 2.36 MB
Kind: Adobe PDF
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
Data.zip
Size:
8.68 MB
Format:
ZIP archive
Description:
Supplementary material
Name: Data.zip
Size: 8.68 MB
Kind: ZIP
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.07 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Name: license.txt
Size: 2.07 KB
Kind: License
Collections
Masters Degree Theses