On the statistical properties of operant settings and their contribution to the evaluation of sensitivity to reinforcement

Abstract

When using the matching law in applied settings, a recurring problem is to assess when subjects adjust their responses as a function of their associated reinforcers. Specifically, the main concern is to determine whether subjects’ behavior are sensitive to reinforcement or not. Many researchers have followed (explicitly or implicitly) the criterion that 50% of explained variance is deemed acceptable to consider the subject sensitive. However, it is neither theoretically nor empirically grounded. This article presents a null hypothesis statistical test to assess whether an organism’s behavior is sensitive to reinforcement as quantitatively expressed by the matching law. We first introduce the motivation as to why such a test is warranted, formally described the basis of the model used to compute the null hypothesis and then show some of its advantages. We conclude the article with a hypothetical example.