SCHEDULES USING NOXIOUS STIMULI. L MULTIPLE FIXED‐RATIO AND FIXED‐INTERVAL TERMINATION OF SCHEDULE COMPLEXES 1

A procedure in which responses reduced intermittently presented electric shocks to one quarter of their originally scheduled intensity, effectively engendered and maintained lever pressing in hooded rats. This contingency also markedly increased the response rates of rats initially trained under an unsignaled avoidance procedure. The responding of all animals extinguished rapidly when shock was withdrawn. Subsequently, it was discovered that high response rates could be maintained solely through presentation of shocks that were not affected by responses. Variations in the interval between shocks and changes in shock intensity over a wide range did not attenuate responding. Terminal performance was characterized by a consistent pattern of shock-elicited responses. Responses were also elicited by a tone following repeated tone-shock pairings. Finally, responding that was maintained by response-independent shocks was quickly suppressed by response-contingent shocks of the same intensity. CONTENTS Method Experiment I. Unsignaled avoidance (Sidman) compared with response-produced reduction in the intensity of intermittent shocks Experiment 11. Extinction of responding through a shock withdrawal procedure Experiment III. The effect of increases in the intensity of the response-reduced shocks with eventual maintenance of responding through non-contingent shock presentations Experiment IV. Modulation of responding through variations in the shock-shock interval Experiment V. Effects of non-contingent shock intensity and response-contingent shock upon responding maintained by non-contingent shock Experiment VI.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

PERSISTENT SHOCK‐ELICITED RESPONDING ENGENDERED BY A NEGATIVE‐REINFORCEMENT PROCEDURE¹

Powell

Peck

1969

“…Except for Monkeys S-520 and S-525, all were experimentally naive when first exposed to a schedule of termination of a visual stimulus associated with electric-shock delivery (Morse and Kelleher, 1966). Under the final parameters of this schedule, when 5 min had elapsed in the presence of a white light, shocks were scheduled to occur after t sec, and every t sec thereafter.…”

Section: Schedulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

PUNISHMENT OF RESPONDING UNDER SCHEDULES OF STIMULUS‐SHOCK TERMINATION: EFFECTS OF d‐AMPHETAMINE AND PENTOBARBITAL¹

McKearney¹

1976

Responding maintained in squirrel monkeys under 5-min fixed-interval schedules of either food presentation or termination of a visual stimulus associated with electric-shock delivery was suppressed by presenting an electric shock for every thirtieth response (punishment). In monkeys responding under the schedule of food presentation, d-amphetamine sulfate only further decreased punished responding, and pentobarbital sodium markedly increased punished responding, as expected from previous reports. In monkeys responding under the schedule of stimulus-shock termination, however, the effects of the two drugs were opposite: d-amphetamine markedly increased punished responding, whereas pentobarbital only decreased responding. Thus, the effects of these drugs on punished responding were different depending on the type of event maintaining responding. These and previous results indicate that it may be misleading and inaccurate to speak of the effects of drugs on "punished responding" as though punishment were a unitary phenomenon. As with any behavior, the effects of drugs and other interventions on punished responding cannot be accurately characterized independently of the precise conditions under which the behavior occurs.

“…When responding is reinforced during one stimulus, lower rates of responding occur in the presence of neighboring stimuli on the same continuum with the reinforced stimulus; when responding is punished during one stimulus, higher rates occur in the presence of neighboring stimuli (Honig, 1966 A further point of symmetry is the fact that behavioral interactions between components of multiple schedules can be produced by changing the frequencies of reinforcement (Reynolds, 1961) or punishment (Rachlin, 1966) during one component. Also, both reinforcement and punishment produce effects appropriate to the schedules according to which they occur (Ferster and Skinner, 1957;Azrin and Holz, 1966;Morse and Kelleher, 1966).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

INDIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUNISHMENT AND FREE SHOCK: EVIDENCE FOR THE NEGATIVE LAW OF EFFECT¹

Schuster

Rachlin

1968

Pigeons were trained to respond under two conditions with two identical variable-interval schedules of positive reinforcement. While the schedules operated for separate response keys, they were not available concurrently. During one condition, each response was punished with electric shock. During the other condition, shocks were delivered independently of responding. The punishment suppressed responding but the free shocks did not. However, when allowed to choose, the pigeons preferred the condition associated with the lowest rate of shock regardless of whether or not the shock was dependent on responding. In general, shocks exerted their greatest effect on whichever response had the greatest influence on shocks. In this respect, punishment is instrumental in suppressing behavior and the properties of punishment are symmetrical to those of reinforcement. This empirical symmetry dictates a corresponding conceptual symmetry in terms of a positive law of effect accounting for response increments and a negative law accounting for response decrements.