Effects of Response-Signal Temporal Separation on Behavior Maintained Under Temporally Defined Schedules of Delayed Signaled Reinforcement

The present study assessed the effects of systematically separating the cue from the response in temporally defined schedules of delayed signaled reinforcement. Identical schedules were used to study the effects of the independent variable on response acquisition and response maintenance. In the first experiment, 8 groups of 3 naive rats were exposed to 1 of 8 temporally defined schedules that differed in both the duration of a response opportunity and response- signal temporal separation. In the second experiment, 3 rats were exposed to the previously described schedules using a within-subjects design. Results in both experiments showed response rate as a decreasing function of response- signal temporal separation. The findings could be the result of the combination of delaying conditioned reinforcement and blocking the response selected for reinforcement.