A Comparison of the Elimination of Shock-Right and Shock-Wrong Blinds in a Finger Maze

The history and present status of the law of effect.

“…Punishment has been found to affect different measures of learning. In many studies, in which responses are scored as either right or wrong, punishment has led to a decrease in the number of errors (10,13,24,25,26,27,36,41,54,55,56,57,79,80,87,111,116,137,138,172,173,193,196,199,200,201,202,204,206,218,301,302,307,326). When speed of learning is measured in terms of the number of trials required to reach criterion, we find that punishment often results in a smaller number of trials (19,24,25,26,27,36,41,54,55,111,137,155,171,193,…”

“…1. A large number of different organisms have been spurred on to better learning by punishment: 10 earthworms (325), cockroaches (261,300), dancing mice (324), rats (e.g., 20,54,56,57,111,116,155,193,106,199,200,201,202,204,206,301,307,322), chicks (36), cats (53), and, last but not least, human beings (10,12,13,19,24,25,26,27,41,55,79,80,87,137,138,172,173,217,218,302).…”