An analysis of an article by Davison, McCarthy, and Jensen, ?Component Probability and Component Reinforcer Rate as Biasers of Free ? Operant Detection”, focusing on the issue of behavior analysis.
This paper is a written summary, including a discussion of the article ?Component Probability and Component Reinforcer Rate as Biasers of Free ? Operant Detection? by Michael Davison, Diane McCarthy, and Chris Jensen. The paper outlines the article, which is a series of experiments relating to behavior analysis in general, specifically the matching law and signal detection theory. The paper presents and summarizes the series of experiments designed by McCarthy et al., including all observations, results, and conclusions.
“This series of experiments was designed to test the applicability of the signal – detection model of Davison and Tustin (1978) in free operant detection under two biasing manipulations. The first was variation of component frequency (The probability of presenting S1, a bright light, over S2, a dim light), which was varied in experiments 1a and 2a. The second manipulation was variation of the within-component reinforcer rates (reinforcement schedules one each key) in experiments 1b and 2b. Each variable was varied while holding the others constant.”