Reinforcement contingencies as discriminative stimuli.

A matching paradigm was used to examine the discriminative properties of two different reinforcement contingencies. Responding according to either a differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate or a differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior schedule produced a choice situation in which each of two keys was illuminated with a unique color. The correct choice response was defined by the contingency that was met to produce the choice. Eighty to 100% correct matching was obtained and recovered during two reversals of the choice stimuli. Introduction of a delay between completion of the reinforcement contingency and presentation of the choice stimuli resulted in decrements in matching performances similar to those obtained when other types of sample stimuli are used. The results provided evidence of the discriminative properties of the relation between behavior and other classes of stimuli.