Katrina is trying to put a coin into a vending machine in her office.Sometimes the machine will take a coin on the first try,and other times it can take up to five or six tries before the coin is finally accepted.On which type of schedule is inserting a coin into the vending machine reinforced in this example

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

In this example, the reinforcement (accepting the coin) occurs intermittently or on an unpredictable schedule, where sometimes it happens on the first try and other times it takes more attempts. This is different from continuous reinforcement (C), where the behavior (inserting the coin) is reinforced every single time, and noncontingent reinforcement (D), where reinforcement occurs independent of the behavior. Short-delay reinforcement (B) would imply that the reinforcement is immediate, which is not the case in this example.

Katrina Is Trying to Put a Coin into a Vending