I get one reward per pomodoro, unless I chain the pomodoros together, in which case the reward matches the number of pomodoros completed (so if I do three in a row, 75 minutes of work, then I get 3 M&Ms). If I want to take a break, then I accept that I’ll only get 1 M&M, instead of 2 or 3, after the next pomodoro.
In practice, then, I’m using variable intervals. Based on your feedback, I’ll experiment with eating all the rewards at the end of the time interval, instead of devouring them after each pom.
I somehow stumbled on this old post. I’m curious how your experiment with diffrent reinforcment scheduled worked.
My prediction is that your original, get one M&M for each pomodory (bundled when that is practical) worked best, and any exra randomness didn’t help.
My reasoning. When ever I read about reinforcment and extinction, I run the following test: Would that outcome be predicted by assuming the animal was inteligently trying to predict what is going on? And the answer is always “yes”.
E.g. Why is varied schedules harder to extinguish? Becasue it requires more evideince to make sure the reward is gone. If the reward is predictable, noticeing it’s absense is easy, but if it’s undpredictable, then you never know. If you’re a lab animal.
When I apply this heuristic to your situation, then if you miss an M&M one day, you know what is going on, and you know that this is does not mean the M&M has stopped forever. This is very diffrent from animal training.
That’s very interesting indeed.
I get one reward per pomodoro, unless I chain the pomodoros together, in which case the reward matches the number of pomodoros completed (so if I do three in a row, 75 minutes of work, then I get 3 M&Ms). If I want to take a break, then I accept that I’ll only get 1 M&M, instead of 2 or 3, after the next pomodoro.
In practice, then, I’m using variable intervals. Based on your feedback, I’ll experiment with eating all the rewards at the end of the time interval, instead of devouring them after each pom.
I somehow stumbled on this old post. I’m curious how your experiment with diffrent reinforcment scheduled worked.
My prediction is that your original, get one M&M for each pomodory (bundled when that is practical) worked best, and any exra randomness didn’t help.
My reasoning. When ever I read about reinforcment and extinction, I run the following test: Would that outcome be predicted by assuming the animal was inteligently trying to predict what is going on? And the answer is always “yes”.
E.g. Why is varied schedules harder to extinguish? Becasue it requires more evideince to make sure the reward is gone. If the reward is predictable, noticeing it’s absense is easy, but if it’s undpredictable, then you never know. If you’re a lab animal.
When I apply this heuristic to your situation, then if you miss an M&M one day, you know what is going on, and you know that this is does not mean the M&M has stopped forever. This is very diffrent from animal training.