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. 1981 May;35(3):311–322. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1981.35-311

Selective punishment of interresponse times

Gregory Galbicka, Marc N Branch
PMCID: PMC1333086  PMID: 16812219

Abstract

Lever pressing by two squirrel monkeys was maintained under a variable-interval 60-second schedule of food presentation. When response-dependent electric shock was made contingent on comparatively long interresponse times, response rate increased, and further increases were obtained when the minimum interresponse-time requirement was decreased. When an equal proportion of responses produced shock without regard to interresponse time, rates decreased. Thus, shock contingent on long interresponse times selectively decreased the relative frequency of those interresponse times, and increased the relative frequency of shorter interresponse times, whereas shock delivered independent of interresponse times decreased the relative frequency of shorter interresponse times while increasing the frequency of longer ones. The results provide preliminary evidence that interresponse times may be differentiated by punishment, further supporting the notion that interresponse times may be considered functional units of behavior.

Keywords: interresponse times, punishment, response-contingent electric shock, molecular analyses, squirrel monkey

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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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