Recent Reinforcement‐schedule Research and Applied Behavior Analysis

Reinforcement schedules are considered in relation to applied behavior analysis by examining several recent laboratory experiments with humans and other animals. The experiments are drawn from three areas of contemporary schedule research: behavioral history effects on schedule performance, the role of instructions in schedule performance of humans, and dynamic schedules of reinforcement. All of the experiments are discussed in relation to the role of behavioral history in current schedule performance. The paper concludes by extracting from the experiments some more general issues concerning reinforcement schedules in applied research and practice.