AVERSIVE ASPECTS OF A FIXED‐INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF FOOD REINFORCEMENT<sup>1</sup>

Richards, Ralph W.; Rilling, Mark

doi:10.1901/jeab.1972.17-405

Cited by 42 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…Terrace (1966) reported that birds showed "emotional" responses, such as wingflapping, during the extinction component of a multiple schedule, and Azrin et al (1966) found that pigeons would attack a target bird during extinction. Richards and Rilling (1972) obtained similar target-attack behavior in pigeons on an FI 90-sec schedule. Most of the attacks were recorded during the first half of an interreinforcement interval.…”

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Stimulus control of behavior during the postreinforcement pause of FI schedules

Innis

Honig

1979

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Pigeons were given the opportunity to terminate certain segments of fixed intervals by pecking a control key. When 3D-sec segments of negative and positive stimuli alternated across the interreinforcement interval (Experiment 1), most birds terminated a large proportion of negative segments. However, few control-key responses were made during the negative segment immediately following food presentation. Under schedules during which only one negative segment was programmed, during the first 30 sec of 1-min intervals (Experiment 2), control-key responses, when they occurred at all, were made after several seconds of the interval had elapsed. Similar findings were obtained when a peck on the control key merely changed the color on the food key (Experiment 3). These findings suggest that the postreinforcement extinction state (Schneider, 1969)during fixed-interval schedules consists of two phases: an immediate postreinforcement inhibitory phase, followed by a second phase during which a control-key response may occur. These two phases and their associated behavior may be related to Staddon's (1977) distinction between interim and facultative activities.The behavior of pigeons on fixed-interval (FI) schedules of reinforcement develops a characteristic pattern, the FI scallop (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). Toward the end of an interreinforcement interval, a high rate of keypecking, the terminal response, is usually observed, while at times immediately following food presentation, other behaviors, called interim activities, are likely to occur (Staddon, 1977;Staddon & Simmelhag, 1971). The period during which behavior other than the required operant (terminal response) occurs is called the postreinforcement pause and is typically a constant proportion of the interreinforcement interval (Schneider, 1969 havior other than the terminal response on either FI or mu/t EXT VI schedules, some researchers have suggested that pigeons find stimuli associated with both extinction and the early portions of FI schedules aversive. Terrace (1966) reported that birds showed "emotional" responses, such as wingflapping, during the extinction component of a multiple schedule, and Azrin et al. (1966) found that pigeons would attack a target bird during extinction. Richards and Rilling (1972) obtained similar target-attack behavior in pigeons on an FI 90-sec schedule. Most of the attacks were recorded during the first half of an interreinforcement interval.Birds will also respond to terminate visual stimuli associated with both FI and extinction schedules. Brown and Flory (1972) found that pigeons would respond to change the color of the key light and turn off the houselight during fixed intervals ranging from 30 to 960 sec, although interval duration was not shortened by this response. Rilling et al. (1%9) found that pigeons would peck a key to produce a blackout and thus escape from a stimulus associated with extinction. Honig and his associates (Honig et al. , 1972; Leyland & .Honig, 1975) showed that birds would learn a control-key respo...

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Stimulus control of behavior during the postreinforcement pause of FI schedules

Innis

Honig

1979

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…For example, Richards and Rilling (1972) found that attacks by the subject on a restrained target pigeon were higher under an FI schedule than prior to such training and that the attacks occurred most frequently during the early part of the interval. The authors suggested that the frequency of aggression be used as an index of aversiveness, although they obviously used the latter term in some sense more general than we have.…”

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Escape From Serial Stimuli Leading to Food

Dinsmoor

Lee

Brown

1986

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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If the functional relations governing the strength of a conditioned reinforcer correspond to those obtained with other Pavlovian procedures (e.g., Kaplan, 1984), the termination of stimuli appearing early in the interval between successive food deliveries should be reinforcing. During initial training we presented four key colors, followed by food, in a recurrent sequence to each of 6 pigeons. This established a baseline level of autoshaped pecking. In later sessions, we terminated each of these colors or only the first color for a brief period following each peck, replacing the original color with a standard substitute to avoid darkening the key. Pecking decreased in the presence of the last color in the sequence but increased in the presence of the first. In accord with contemporary models of Pavlovian conditioning, these and other data suggest that the behavioral effects of stimuli in a chain may be better understood in terms of what each stimulus predicts, as measured by relative time to the terminal reinforcer, than in the exclusively positive terms of the traditional formulation (Skinner, 1938). The same model may also account for the initial pause under fixed-interval and fixed-ratio schedules of reinforcement.

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“…Furthermore, Brown and Flory (1972) showed that pigeons will respond to terminate the stimulus associated with an FI schedule; termination behavior typically occurred shortly after reinforcement, when the foregoing analysis suggests aversive stimuli occur. In addition, Richards and Rilling (1972) have shown that a pigeon is likely to attack another pigeon during the postreinforcement period on an FI schedule. Various "interim activities" (Staddon & Simmelhag, 1971), or adjunctive behaviors (Falk, 1972) on fixed IRI schedules, such as attack, escape, and general activity (Killeen, 1975), might be, at least in part, a function of aversive properties of the postreinforcement period.…”

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confidence: 99%

Stimulus functions within a fixed-interval clock schedule: Reinforcement, punishment, and discriminative stimulus control

Auge

1977

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Pigeons received food for responding on a fixed-interval 32-sec schedule divided into three equal parts, each correlated with a distinctive, response-independent, visual stimulus. Response rate was very low during the first two thirds of the interval but high during the terminal third. When a response-dependent brief stimulus correlated with the terminal third was arranged for each response in the presence of the stimuli correlated with the first two thirds, response rate was enhanced, especially in the middle third. However, response rate was suppressed when each response in the presence of the stimulus correlated with the final third produced a brief stimulus correlated with the initial third. A similar suppressive effect occurred when each response produced a brief stimulus correlated with the middle third. Response suppression decreased over successive responsedependent brief-initial-stimulus manipulations. The results were interpreted in terms of reinforcement, punishment, and discriminative stimulus control by visual stimuli correlated with parts of a fixed-interval schedule.Control of fixed-interval (FI) behavior by exteroceptive, discriminative stimuli can be demonstrated with either a continuous or discontinuous visual clock which demarcates the passage of time during an interval. For example, in experiments by Ferster and Skinner (1957), a small slit of light grew continuously and linearly throughout a lO-min interval, reaching its maximum size at reinforcement. FolIowing reinforcement, the clock reset to an initial value and started recycling. Ferster and Skinner showed that the pause after reinforcement lengthened and the terminal response rate increased as control by the clock developed.More recent studies of Fl clock schedules (Farmer

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AVERSIVE ASPECTS OF A FIXED‐INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF FOOD REINFORCEMENT¹

Cited by 42 publications

References 24 publications

Stimulus control of behavior during the postreinforcement pause of FI schedules

Stimulus control of behavior during the postreinforcement pause of FI schedules

Escape From Serial Stimuli Leading to Food

Stimulus functions within a fixed-interval clock schedule: Reinforcement, punishment, and discriminative stimulus control

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AVERSIVE ASPECTS OF A FIXED‐INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF FOOD REINFORCEMENT1

Cited by 42 publications

References 24 publications

Stimulus control of behavior during the postreinforcement pause of FI schedules

Stimulus control of behavior during the postreinforcement pause of FI schedules

Escape From Serial Stimuli Leading to Food

Stimulus functions within a fixed-interval clock schedule: Reinforcement, punishment, and discriminative stimulus control

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AVERSIVE ASPECTS OF A FIXED‐INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF FOOD REINFORCEMENT¹