THE TRANSITIVITY OF CHOICES BETWEEN DIFFERENT RESPONSE REQUIREMENTS

Abstract

This experiment tested the transitivity of hens' choices between response requirements differing in both form and number. In a concurrent second‐order schedule procedure, 6 hens chose between two alternatives by making either key‐peck or door‐push responses. The reinforcement rates on the two alternatives remained constant and equal throughout conditions, but the number of responses (i.e., key pecks or door pushes) required on each alternative was varied by changing the second‐order (fixed‐ratio) requirements. The preferences obtained from two pairings of response requirements allowed prediction of the preferences expected in a third pairing. No intransitivities were found, implying that the response requirements lie on a common unitary scale of value. For response‐based measures, the obtained preferences varied evenly around perfect, multiplicative prediction, and all satisfied strong transitivity, implying an underlying interval scale of value. For time‐based measures, only moderate transitivity was satisfied, implying only an ordinal scale of value. Time‐based measures were confounded with the differing times taken to complete each response requirement. The existence of such scales indicates that direct comparisons of different response requirements may be possible.

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