In operant conditioning, a fixed-ratio program is a program of reinforcement Where a response is reinforced after several responses. The subject provides several answers and then a reward is offered by the coach. One advantage of the kind of program is that it generates a high speed of reacting with a brief pause following the delivery of the reinforcer.

If you remember, operant conditioning involves strengthening or weakening behaviours via rewards and punishments. This Kind of associative learning Involves altering behaviour based upon the consequences of this behaviour. To put it differently, if a consequence that is desired follows a behaviour that behaviour is likely to happen in the future. Then the activity becomes less inclined to occur again if, on the other hand, an action is followed by an undesirable outcome.

Behaviourist B.F. Skinner Observed that the schedule of reinforcement, or the speed at which there was a behaviour reinforced, affected the strength and the frequency of this reaction. The schedule is one of the programs that Skinner identified.

The way the Fixed-Ratio Program Works

The schedule could be understood by looking at the expression itself. Fixed refers to the delivery of benefits on a schedule that is constant. The ratio refers to the number of responses which are needed to get reinforcement. By way of instance, a schedule may be shipping a reward for each reaction that is fifth. After the subject reacts to the stimulation on five occasions, there is a reward delivered.

Imagine that you are training a laboratory rat to press on a button to be able to be given a food pellet. You opt to put the rat on a fixed-ratio 15 (FR-15) schedule. To be able to obtain the food pellet, the rat has to engage in the operant response (pressing the button) 15 days before it is going to get the food pellet. The program is fixed, so the rat will always get the pellet every 15 days it presses the lever.

Attributes

What effect does the program have on reaction rates?

Ends in high, steady responding until the reinforcement is delivered

Best used when learning a new behaviour

Contributes to a quick response pause after reinforcement, but responding quickly resumes

The FR program leads to rates of reaction that Stick to a pattern that is burst-pause-burst. Until the reinforcement is delivered, at which point there’ll be a pause Topics will respond at a high rate. Responding will restart at a high pace.

Among the advantages of a program is that it contributes to a Rate of responding, albeit a pause is following a reward is delivered. One disadvantage is that issues could become exhausted from a high response speed after a variety of reinforcements are given, or they might become satiated.

Cases of Fixed-Ratio Schedules

• Production Line Function: Employees at a widget factory are paid for every 15 widgets they create. This causes a high production rate and employees often take breaks. It can lead to work and burnout.
• Collecting Tokens in a Video Game: In most video games, you must collect a lot of tokens, object, or points to receive some kind of reward.
• Sales Commissions: A worker earns a commission for every third purchase they make.
• Grades: A child is given a reward as soon as they earn five A’s on her homework assignments. Following her A on a homework assignment, she gets to pick a toy out.
• Piecework: Jobs that need X amount of responses to receive compensation. By way of example, a worker receives X number of dollars for every 100 fliers they stick on windshields or every 100 envelopes they stuff.
• Farm work: Farm employees are paid X amount of dollars for every basket of fruit they pick.

Word From Supedium

A program can be a useful approach to situations Conditioning is utilized by that. When Picking a program, however, It’s important to consider factors such as you want the subject to react and you would like to present a reward.