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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1977 Nov;28(3):285–293. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1977.28-285

Punishment-specific effects of pentobarbital: dependency on the type of punisher.

M N Branch, G Nicholson, S I Dworkin
PMCID: PMC1333644  PMID: 562919

Abstract

Pigeons were trained to peck a key under a multiple random-interval 1-minute, random-interval 6-minute schedule of food presentation. Subsequently, over three phases, additions were made during the random-interval 1-minute component as follows: pecks during the component occasionally were punished by timeout presentation (Phase 1), timeouts were presented independently of responding during the component (Phase 2), pecks during the component occasionally were punished by electric-shock presentation (Phase 3). In Phases 1 and 3, response-dependent timeout and shock suppressed responding and established equivalent rates in both components of the multiple schedule. Intermediate doses of pentobarbital increased responding suppressed by electric-shock punishment but had little or no effect on responding suppressed by timeout punishment. Response-independent presentation of timeouts did not result in suppression of responding (thus showing that response-dependent timeout acted as a punisher), and pentobarbital did not reliably increase unpunished responding. Pentobarbital's selective "punishment-attenuating" properties depend on the nature of the punisher.

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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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