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. 1978 Nov;30(3):271–279. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1978.30-271

Responding maintained under fixed-interval and fixed-time schedules of electric shock presentation1

E F Malagodi, Michael L Gardner, Greg Palermo
PMCID: PMC1332771  PMID: 16812107

Abstract

Following initial histories under a schedule of electric shock postponement, lever pressing in squirrel monkeys was maintained under fixed-interval and fixed-time schedules of electric shock presentation. No difference in either rate or pattern of responding was obtained when these schedules were presented as components of a multiple schedule. When they were presented singly for long periods of time, the fixed-interval schedule consistently maintained a higher response rate than the fixed-time schedule. The pattern of responding under both schedules was similar, typically consisting of a pause at the beginning of each interval followed by either a steady or a positively accelerating rate of responding. The results suggest that the response-shock dependency is of critical importance in the maintenance of high rates of responding under schedules of electric shock presentation, and support the general view that such responding may be conceptualized as operant behavior under control of many of the same variables that control responding under comparable schedules of food or water reinforcement.

Keywords: shock-maintained behavior, shock-elicited behavior, fixed-interval shock schedules, fixed-time shock schedules, lever press, squirrel monkeys

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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