The Effect of Negative Incentives in Serial Learning: III. Fixation Due to An Isolated Verbal Punishment

The action of various after-effects on response repetition.

“…Spread of effect, with both punishment and reward, has been reported by several £'s (4). Of special interest here is Stone's finding, in the experiment referred to above (9), that punishment not only strengthened the connection to which it was applied but also strengthened nearby connections that were neither punished or rewarded. This result was interpreted as further evidence for the conclusion that punishment fixates slightly.…”

“…According to this interpretation, punished behavior is eliminated not by active weakening but by losing out in the competition with rewarded responses. In an experimental paper Stone (9) has presented evidence which seems to corroborate his view that punishment strengthens verbal connections. Saying "wrong" produced repetitions of response with greater frequency than would be predicted by chance.…”

The effect of negative incentives in serial learning: VI. Response repetition as a function of an isolated electric shock punishment.

“…The probability of the occurrence of the punished response was, instead, increased. Together with other data gathered in a coordinated research program (12,13,14,15,16), these results lead to the hypothesis that the effect of punishment in perceptually difficult serial tasks when the situation is not complicated by immediately available responses as alternatives to the one just punished (i.e., the effect of punishment per se) is fixative.…”

“…The problem of the present paper stems directly from an earlier experiment by the senior author (14) in which it was demonstrated that the, effect of an isolated verbal punishment in a serial task was not to weaken the strength of the stimulus-response relationship to which it was applied. The probability of the occurrence of the punished response was, instead, increased.…”

“…The present research investigates the influence of an informative serially isolated-punishment, conveyed by an electric shock, upon the selection and fixation of verbal responses. The experimental design is identical with that of Stone's 1948 study (14) except for the employment of the stronger type of punishment.…”