The Effect of Negative Stimulus Presentations on Observing‐response Rates

Four rats obtained food pellets by poking a key and 5-s presentations of the discriminative stimuli by pressing a lever. Every 1 or 2 min, the prevailing schedule of reinforcement for key poking alternated between rich (either variable-interval [VI] 30 s or VI 60 s) and lean (either VI 240 s, VI 480 s, or extinction) components. While the key was dark (mixed-schedule stimulus), no exteroceptive stimulus indicated the prevailing schedule. A lever press (i.e., an observing response), however, illuminated the key for 5 s with either a steady light (Sϩ), signaling the rich reinforcement schedule, or a blinking light (SϪ), signaling the lean reinforcement schedule. One goal was to determine whether rats would engage in selective observing (i.e., a pattern of responding that maintains contact with Sϩ and decreases contact with SϪ). Such a pattern was found, in that a 5-s presentation of Sϩ was followed relatively quickly by another observing response (which likely produced another 5-s period of Sϩ), whereas exposure to SϪ resulted in extended breaks from observing. Additional conditions demonstrated that the rate of observing remained high when lever presses were effective only when the rich reinforcement schedule was in effect (Sϩ only condition), but decreased to a low level when lever presses were effective only during the lean reinforcement component (SϪ only condition) or when lever presses had no effect (in removing the mixed stimulus or presenting the multiple-schedule stimuli). These findings are consistent with relativistic conceptualizations of conditioned reinforcement and extend the generality of selective observing to procedures in which the experimenter controls the duration of stimulus presentations, the schedule components both offer intermittent food reinforcement, and rats serve as subjects.Key words: observing behavior, selective observing, conditioned reinforcement, key poke, ratsObserving responses bring sensory receptors into contact with stimuli that signal the availability of primary reinforcement, but do not alter that availability (Wycoff, 1952(Wycoff, , 1969. It appears, then, that such responding is maintained by production of the discriminative stimuli rather than by production of primary reinforcement. As such, observing behavior has been important in the study of stimulus control (Dinsmoor, 1985(Dinsmoor, , 1995Wycoff, 1952Wycoff, , 1969 and conditioned reinforcement (Dinsmoor, 1983;Fantino, 1977Fantino, , 2001Hendry, 1969).A typical method for studying observing behavior consists first of training on a multiple schedule. For example, a pigeon can obtain food by key pecking in the presence of This research was conducted at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (IBN-9511934 and IBN-0125093) to UNCG.Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Scott T. Gaynor, Western Michigan University, Department of Psychology, 3530 Wood Hall, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008-5439 (e-mail: scott.gaynor@wmich.edu) or Richard L...

mentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Ratmentioning

confidence: 72%

The Generality of Selective Observing

Gaynor

Shull

2002

“…Most investigators who have examined that issue have concluded that it is not (for review and discussion, see Dinsmoor, 1983). The strongest evidence for the contention that Sis reinforcing came from the work of Lieberman, but Mueller and Dinsmoor (1984) were able to reproduce Lieberman's results under circumstances that indicated that the original interpretation was not correct, and Mueller and Dinsmoor (1986) have offered an alternative interpretation of those results. In recent years, attention has turned to other forms of information.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Information on Response Requirements Compared With Information on Food Density as a Rein Forcer of Observing in Pigeons

Dinsmoor

Bowe

Green

et al. 1988

Self Cite

On a variable-interval schedule, pecking the key to the pigeon's right (observing response) produced red or green displays relating to the delivery of grain and its dependence on pecking the key to the left (food key). During various blocks of sessions, mixed (no stimulus change) schedules including the following pairs of components were temporarily converted by the observing response to their corresponding multiple (correlated stimuli) schedules: variable-interval 60-s, extinction; variable-interval 60-s, variable-time (response-independent) 60-s; extinction, variable-time 60-s. Differences in food delivery maintained substantial rates of responding on the observing key, without regard to pecking requirements on the food key. Although stimuli correlated with differences in the response requirement on the food key maintained higher observing rates than those maintained by uncorrelated stimuli, they were much lower than those based on food. The value of predictive stimuli as reinforcers is determined by the value of the events predicted. In particular, the cost of pecking appears to be low, and this may place limitations on the applicability of energy-based and economic models of behavior.

“…Previous experiments (Blanchard, 1975;Browne & Dinsmoor, 1974;Dinsmoor, Browne, & Lawrence, 1972;Mulvaney, Dinsmoor, Jwaideh, & Hughes, 1974) found that S -did not function as a reinforcer. One positive demonstration by Lieberman (1972) was criticized by Mueller and Dinsmoor (1986), who showed that if S-occurred response-independently in addition to response-dependent S+ presentation, pigeons' observing was as frequent as in the case where both S+ and S-were presented responsedependently. Although strong evidence has not yet been obtained, this should not necessarily rule out the information hypothesis of conditioned reinforcement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing Responses Maintained by Conditional Discriminative Stimuli

Ohta

1987

In a conditional discrimination procedure, pigeons' observing responses were analyzed to examine whether two color stimuli (blue or red), conditionally related to whether each of two line stimuli (vertical or horizontal) accompanied reinforcement or nonreinforcement, functioned as conditioned reinforcers. If a variable-interval (VI) 10-s requirement was fulfilled, an observing response produced onset of a color stimulus. A little later, a line stimulus was presented independently of responding, added to the color stimulus to form a compound stimulus. If 55 s elapsed with a response not having occurred either through 55 s or after the variable-interval 10-s had timed out, one of the color-line compound stimuli was presented independently of responding. To control for sensory reinforcement effects and for earlier entrance to the later link, a simple discrimination procedure also was conducted in which reinforcement was not correlated with the color stimuli but with the line stimuli only. As in the conditional discrimination, the observing response also could produce earlier presentation of blue or red. The observing response occurred more frequently during the conditional discrimination than during the simple discrimination. The results were related to different theoretical accounts of conditioned reinforcement, particularly the information hypothesis.