Concepts and Principles
Schedules, persistence, and response allocation
Use reinforcement schedules, behavioral momentum, and matching law to predict response persistence and allocation across alternatives.
Concept review facts
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What this concept means here
Use reinforcement schedules, behavioral momentum, and matching law to predict response persistence and allocation across alternatives.
How it appears in questions
Identify simple and compound schedules.
Best next action
If this concept is weak, practice Concepts and Principles scenarios and write one correction rule after each miss.
How this shows up in scenario questions
- 1Identify simple and compound schedules.
- 2Interpret response persistence under disruption.
- 3Apply matching law to allocation between response options.
Common misconceptions
- Confusing multiple and mixed schedules.
- Assuming richer reinforcement never affects allocation.
- Treating persistence as the same as response rate.
Distractor patterns
- Choose the wrong schedule based on absence of discriminative stimuli.
- Ignore relative reinforcement rates.
- Call all persistence extinction resistance without context.
Self-check before more practice
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Related terms
schedulesbehavioral momentummatching lawresponse persistenceresponse allocation
Turn this concept into practice
Use this page as a weak-area checkpoint: practice related scenarios, then review missed answers and save a study plan from your results.
Related study guides
Related practice prompts
Practice moreSimple schedules of reinforcement: Schedules, persistence, and response allocation.
A student contacts two different consequences for the same response across settings, and responding shifts toward the setting with more reliable access. Across 7 sessions in service week 2, 2 observers recorded 25 minutes of observation in the elementary classroom. The BCBA's interpretation should:
Concurrent, multiple, mixed, and chained schedules: Schedules, persistence, and response allocation.
During home program sessions, a child completes requesting help when one cue is present but not when a similar cue is used by another adult. Across 8 sessions in service week 2, 3 observers recorded 26 minutes of observation in the home program. The data pattern suggests the BCBA should first:
Motivating operations: Motivating operations versus discriminative stimuli.
During home program sessions, a child completes requesting help when one cue is present but not when a similar cue is used by another adult. Across 4 sessions in service week 3, 3 observers recorded 32 minutes of observation in the home program. The data pattern suggests the BCBA should first:
Motivating operations versus stimulus control: Motivating operations versus discriminative stimuli.
An adult client contacts two different consequences for the same response across settings, and responding shifts toward the setting with more reliable access. Across 5 sessions in service week 3, one observer recorded 33 minutes of observation in the vocational training room. The BCBA's interpretation should:
Behavioral momentum and response persistence: Schedules, persistence, and response allocation.
During home program sessions, a child completes requesting help when one cue is present but not when a similar cue is used by another adult. Across 5 sessions in service week 3, 3 observers recorded 38 minutes of observation in the home program. The data pattern suggests the BCBA should first:
More concepts in this domain
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