Rate and Frequency

Description

In their early free operant conditioning experiments, B. F. Skinner and his students used “rate of response” to describe the number of bar presses or key pecks performed by rats and pigeons per minute. In his free operant human laboratory experiments and in precision teaching, Skinner's student Ogden R. Lindsley has used “frequency” to describe the number of movement cycles per unit time (minute, day, week, month, or year) charted on standard celeration charts. Lindsley chose frequency over rate because of its greater precision and because it is used to describe counts per unit time throughout the physical and natural sciences.

Frequency is described as being universal, absolute, standard, informative, sensitive, direct, dimensional, spectral, continuous, promising, productive, and practical measurement. Frequency is universal because everything an individual can do, see, hear, think, think of, or feel can be counted, and that count divided by its counting time yields frequency. Similarly, Skinner called rate a universal measure of behavior. Frequency is absolute because its value does not change from one use to the next or in the hands of other users, and it is standard because everyone uses it in the same way no matter what the application, country, or language.

Frequency is an informative measure because it indicates how often the described behavior occurs under the described conditions. It is a sensitive measure, in that continuous charts have shown subtle changes in performance rhythms more than 40 times more often than the same changes show up in percentcorrect charts. Although movement amplitudes, durations, and quality are not easy to determine, frequency is direct because counts can be made as movements or thoughts occur. Direct also implies that frequency can be mechanically measured (e.g., with electrical switches and microphone circuits that automatically record movement frequencies, including brain waves and nerve discharges).

Frequency is more than just a measure of behavior; it is a dimension of behavior. A change in frequency results in a change in behavior form. For example, walking at 60 paces per minute instead of 120 paces per minute changes the form of walking. To fully describe a behavior, one must state its frequency. In the same way that electric, magnetic, radio, light, and sound waves have frequency spectra in the natural sciences, frequency is also spectral and can have a daily spectrum of from .001 to 1000 per minute.

Frequencies can be continuously recorded, permitting personal patterns and rhythms to appear that are too fine to be noticed by intermittent recording systems. Frequency measures allow prediction when promised results will be achieved. Because frequencies grow or decay by multiplying or dividing, their futures can be projected on standard celeration charts and predict at what future date promised aims will be met with current procedures.

Frequency is a productive measure because automatically and self-recorded frequencies have stood the test of time, producing millions of small-animal cumulative records over 65 years and helping in the discovery of schedules of reinforcement. Frequency measures in human laboratories have produced thousands [Page 1476]of charts over 40 years, leading to the discovery of conjugate reinforcement. Precision teaching students and clients using frequency have produced more than a million standard celeration charts over 37 years, discovering in the process standard celeration system, fluency, and agility effects and proving that human urges, feelings, and actions spread over a range of from one a day to 300 per minute and change by multiplying and dividing. Frequency daily variance, or “bounce,” keeps the same multiple as it changes, and the up bounce has the same multiple size as the down bounce, thus meeting the statistical need for homogeneous and normal variance.

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