Perplexing PI Lever Pressing
June 4, 2009
The CSR directives assure us that the priority scores for our grants will be available on eRA Commons within 3 working days of the conclusion of the study section meeting. Of course, we have generally been waiting 4-5 months after initial submission for the study section to be held for a given grant.
Why do we do this?
[h/t: PhysioProf]
DrugMonkey 
June 5, 2009 at 10:37 am
Clearly, we are anticipating a positive reinforcer! Note our scalloping, like a pigeon pecking a key-light, or a rat pressing a lever.
I surmise that, this scallop effect is a function of %ile ranking…and then it returns back to its pre-extinction levels after the JIT e-mail comes. And then extinguishes again when the PI reads that JITs are sent to everyone below the 30th %ile.
I would also surmise that the frequency of study section roster searching shows a bimodal distribution, with the two peaks coming 1 month before study section; and the other being 3 days after!
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June 5, 2009 at 11:48 am
So is there any chance that, if the priority scores don’t go up for long enough, you’ll enter extinction responding?
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June 5, 2009 at 11:57 am
So is there any chance that, if the priority scores don’t go up for long enough, you’ll enter extinction responding?
It would have to be a very long time…
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June 5, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I think if that happened, you would see an large extinction burst 1st.
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June 5, 2009 at 3:41 pm
You mean like 20,000 challenge grants being submitted for $200M?
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June 8, 2009 at 7:26 am
That is more like cued reinstatement of extinguished behavior…
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