Question

the reinforcement schedule that yields the lowest performance is the

Answer 1

What Is a Schedule of Reinforcement?

So what exactly is a schedule of reinforcement and how does it work in the conditioning process? A schedule of reinforcement is basically a rule stating which instances of a behavior will be reinforced. In some cases, a behavior might be reinforced every time it occurs. Sometimes, a behavior might not be reinforced at all.

Either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement might be used, depending on the situation. In both cases, the goal of reinforcement is always to strengthen the behavior and increase the likelihood that it will occur again in the future.

You can get a better feel for how reinforcement schedules operate by thinking about how learning takes place in both naturally occurring learning situations as well as more structured training situations. In real-world settings, behaviors are probably not going to be reinforced each and every time they occur. For situations where you are purposely trying to train and reinforce an action, such as in the classroom, in sports, or in animal training, you might opt to follow a specific reinforcement schedule.



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As you'll see below, some schedules are best suited to certain types of training situations. In some cases, training might call for starting out with one schedule and switching to another once the desired behavior has been taught. Certain schedules of reinforcement may be more effective in specific situations.

The two types of reinforcement schedules are continuous reinforcement and partial reinforcement (with four variants).

Continuous Reinforcement Schedules

In continuous reinforcement, the desired behavior is reinforced every single time it occurs. This schedule is best used during the initial stages of learning in order to create a strong association between the behavior and the response.

For example, imagine that you are trying to teach a dog to shake your hand. During the initial stages of learning, you would probably stick to a continuous reinforcement schedule in order to teach and establish the behavior. You might start by grabbing the animal's paw, performing the shaking motion, saying "Shake," and then offering a reward each and every time you perform this sequence of steps. Eventually, the dog will start to perform the action on his own, and you might opt to continue reinforcing every single correct response until the behavior is well established.

Once the response if firmly attached, continuous reinforcement is usually switched to a partial reinforcement schedule.