The absence of time-out responding by pigeons during shock-correlated stimuli

Abstract

The purpose of the present experiment was to determine if pigeons would obtain time-out from stimuli associated with independent schedules of intermittent food and electric shock presentation. Few time-outs were obtained from any of the shock-correlated stimuli, but when reinforcement and shock contingencies were removed during one stimulus, i.e., during an extinction component of a multiple scheQule, all subjects obtained a large and consistent amount of time-out. A clear correlation between time-out and behavioral contrast, which occurred when one component of the multiple schedule was correlated with extinction but not when it was correlated with shock, was obtained. While the absence of time-outs during shock-correlated stimuli could be explained as generalization of punishment to the time-out key, the present findings might suggest that the time-out response is an unreliable index of stimulus aversiveness.

Choice of Timeout During Response Independent Food Schedules

“…No other measures were taken of the performances of R13 and R14. EXPERIMENT 4 TIMEOUT FROM VARIABLE-TIME SCHEDULES Responding to produce timeout has commonly been studied with schedules that share the property of making food available in some regular way. The most direct information regarding timeout from irregular schedules of food delivery has come from a number of studies using multiple schedules with variableinterval (VI) reinforcement in one component and extinction schedules in the other (e.g., Coughlin, 1973;Hittesdorf & Richards, 1975;Rilling et al, 1969;Rilling, Kramer, & Richards, 1973;Terrace, 1971;von Sturmer, Beale, & Davison, 1975). In general, appreciable responding to produce timeout occurred in the extinction component, but not during the VI, component.…”