You walk up to a soda machine and put in a dollar, and are rewarded with a bottle of root beer. When you put in another dollar, you get another soda. Assuming that the machine has a limitless supply of root beer, which kind of reinforcement schedule does this machine operate on?

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The soda machine is on a continuous reinforcement schedule because every time a dollar is put in, the machine dispenses a soda. There is no variability in the reinforcement schedule, as every response (putting in a dollar) is met with a reward (getting a soda). This is in contrast to intermittent reinforcement, which would involve the machine dispensing root beer randomly or periodically, such as every other dollar put in. Ratio reinforcement would involve reinforcement being given based on a certain number of responses (e.g. every fifth dollar put in), and interval reinforcement would involve reinforcement being given based on a certain amount of time passing (e.g. a soda being dispensed every 10 minutes). Contiguous reinforcement is not a recognized concept in behavioral psychology.

You Walk Up to a Soda Machine and Put in a Dollar