In the avian training community, a procedure has been utilized to maintain food reinforcer efficacy at high body weights. Elements of this procedure include limited holds and closed economies. To test this procedure, a baseline performance of keypecking on an FR 15 schedule at 80% ad lib weight for two pigeons was established. By imposing limited holds and a closed economy, rates of responding were increased compared to baseline, even while the pigeons were over 90% of their ad-lib body weights.

Pigeons were trained on a zero-delay identity match-to-sample task. Experiment 1 started with every correct match reinforced with grain access and subsequent conditions include higher fixed-ratio values. Experiment 2 included the same fixed-ratio values as experiment 1 with and without a limited hold (LH) on the opportunity to select a comparison stimulus. Prior research suggested that trials after reinforcement would have an increased likelihood of error, and that these errors would be reduced in LH conditions. Results confirmed this expected error pattern and in most LH conditions errors were reduced early in the ratio.

Physical activity is an important health-related behavior, and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children engage in at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous-physical activity (MVPA) daily (CDC, 2015). However, worldwide, many children do not reach those requirements and health problems associated with physical inactivity are becoming more prevalent (CDC, 2015; World Health Organization [WHO], 2016). Recently, a few studies have conducted an intervention analysis to evaluate implications for function-based interventions to increase physical activity (Larson, Normand, Morley, & Miller, 2014; Zerger, Normand, Boga, & Patel, 2016). However, intervention analyses, indicate an overall decrease in levels of MVPA. This limitation could hinder further improvements of function-based interventions to increase physical activity, and is thus important to investigate. The current study partially replicated Zerger et al. (2016), and investigated the effects of alternating FA test conditions and repeated presentation of single condition exposure on maintenance of levels of MVPA in children. Additionally, the current study also evaluated the effectiveness of a more intermittent contingent schedules of reinforcement (i.e., fixed-interval limited-hold schedule) during intervention conditions. Results suggest it might be beneficial for caretakers and parents to deliver reinforcement in the form of social reinforcement to increase MVPA in preschool children. Additionally, the data suggest to promote MVPA, a more intermittent schedule of contingent social reinforcement does not reliably promote stable levels of MVPA.