Interresponse‐time Punishment: A Basis for Shock‐maintained Behavior

Abstract

Lever pressing of squirrel monkeys postponed brief electric shock according to a freeoperant shock-postponement procedure. Pressing also produced shock with a probability proportional to the duration of the current interresponse time in some conditions, or to the fifth ordinally-preceding interresponse time in others. These conditions provided equal frequencies and temporal distributions of response-produced shocks either contingent on or independent of the current interresponse-time duration, respectively. Shock delivered contingent on the current interresponse-time duration resulted in shorter mean interresponse times and higher overall response rates than shock delivered independent of the current interresponse time. In subsequent conditions, response-produced shocks were sufficient to maintain responding following suspension of the postponement procedure only when those shocks were contingent on the current interresponse time. Presenting shock independent of the current interresponse time, conversely, suppressed response rate and ultimately led to cessation of responding in the absence of a conjoint shock-postponement procedure. These results demonstrate interresponse-time punishment in the absence of any indirect avoidance contingencies based on overall shock-frequency reduction, and strongly support similar interpretation at the more local level of shock-frequency reduction correlated with particular interresponse times. Differential punishment of long interresponse times also provides both an a priori basis for predicting whether a schedule of shock presentation will maintain or suppress responding and a framework for interpreting many of the functional relations between overall response rate and parameters of consequent shock presentation. Finally, these results and others indicate the importance of response-consequence contiguity above and beyond any notion of noncontiguous contingency in the control of behavior.Key words: interresponse times, punishment, response-produced shock, avoidance theories of punishment, contiguity, contingency, lever press, squirrel monkeys [291][292][293][294][295][296][297][298][299][300][301][302][303][304][305][306][307][308]

The Puzzle of Responding Maintained by Response‐contingent Shock

“…It has been suggested by Galbicka and Branch (1981) (Galbicka & Branch, 1981;Galbicka & Platt, 1984 well maintained for 1 of our monkeys (see Figure 6) under the Fl 5-min DRH:shock schedule. Thus, in all conditions examined here, only responses that met the IRT criterion were suppressed.…”

“…These effects on responding may have been due either to differential punishment of IRTs or to differential negative reinforcement of IRTs by shock-frequency reduction. Galbicka and Platt (1984) controlled for shockfrequency reduction, and, therefore, attributed the increase in rates they observed to the explicit punishment of long IRTs. In the absence of such a control, no choice can be made between these aversive control functions.…”

In Today's Climate, a Forecast for Change: A Commentary on Donahoe, Palmer, and Burgos

“…Two additions to this list that I find particularly relevant involve studies on shock-maintained behavior, and ones employing Platt's percentile reinforcement schedules. I and others have demonstrated that the effectiveness of local relations can be so powerful as to confound the apparent function of stimuli at the more molar level, as when differential IRT punishment contingencies generate reinforcement-like effects in procedures in which lever pressing is maintained by contingent presentation of electric shock (e.g., Galbicka & Platt, 1984;Lawrence, Hineline, & Bersh, 1994). Stimulus function is not altered under these procedures (i.e., shock does not get transformed into a positive reinforcer; see Pitts & Malagodi, 1991, for a particularly elegant analysis); rather, the behavioral unit that gets differentiated is diametrically opposed to pressing, such that the functional effect appears to be reversed (i.e., by suppressing long IRTs through punishment, lever-press rates increase).…”

The Dynamics of Behavior

“…New procedures designed to illuminate the local dynamics of behavior have also become more commonplace. Linear-IRT schedules (Galbicka & Platt, 1984;Platt, 1979;Weiss, 1970), cyclic-interval schedules (Innis & Staddon, 1971;McDowell & Sulzen, 1981;Staddon, 1964), percentile schedules (Arbuckle & Lattal, in press;Galbicka, Fowler, & Ritch, 1991;Galbicka & Platt, 1986, 1989Machado, 1989), and concurrent schedules for response sequences (e.g., Fetterman & Stubbs, 1982), among others, all provide reinforcement dynamically as a function either of ongoing behavior or of time, to control the rate of change of overall reinforcement frequency. In some cases (e.g., percentile, linear IRT), the rate of change is zero, holding the aggregate reinforcement rate constant throughout the session while varying reinforcement for particular extended sequences of behavior.…”