Bipolar choice in the experimental chamber

In the experiments with animals in a Skinner chamber with two keys and concurrent schedules, the subjects' responses to reinforcement were traditionally described by the Generalized Matching Law function. More recently, it has been suggested that deviations from strict matching may be better described as following a policy of mostly fixing on the preferred schedule, and occasionally sampling the alternative schedule. In the current paper, the authors describe one such model based on parsimonious assumptions of the internal state of the organism and mechanisms of reinforcement attribution. Formally, the model is analogous to the Axiom of Repeated Choice initially constructed for explanation of the human moral choice. The model takes into consideration a two-aspect feature of choice: each alternative has both a practical utility, and an analogue to moral value (good-evil).