Abstract
Rats were trained to hold down a lever for at least 40 consecutive seconds. When the lever had been held down for 40 sec, white noise came on. Releasing the bar in the presence of the noise turned off the noise and operated a feeder that delivered a pellet of food. At the end of training, frequency distributions of response durations peaked at 40 to 41 sec. If as in training, holding down the lever produced white noise at the end of 40 sec, and release of the lever terminated the noise and operated the feeder, but no food delivery occurred, duration distributions and several other measures were initially not very different from when food was delivered. However, if during extinction white noise was never produced by lever holding, and feeder operation did not occur upon lever release, most responses were shorter than 1 sec in duration, some were much longer than 41 sec, and duration distributions did not peak at 40 to 41 sec. When reinforcement was reinstated after extinction, performance quickly returned to pre-extinction measures. Further sessions at different levels of deprivation produced only temporary disruptions in performance.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- BLOUGH D. S. New test for tranquilizers. Science. 1958 Mar 14;127(3298):586–587. doi: 10.1126/science.127.3298.586. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Blough D. S. The reinforcement of least-frequent interresponse times. J Exp Anal Behav. 1966 Sep;9(5):581–591. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1966.9-581. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- CONRAD D. G., SIDMAN M., HERRNSTEIN R. J. The effects of deprivation upon temporally spaced responding. J Exp Anal Behav. 1958 Jan;1:59–65. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1958.1-59. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Fischer K., Fantino E. The dissociation of discriminative and conditioned reinforcing functions of stimuli with changes in deprivation. J Exp Anal Behav. 1968 Nov;11(6):703–710. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1968.11-703. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- KELLEHER R. T., FRY W., COOK L. Inter-response time distribution as a function of differential reinforcement of temporally spaced responses. J Exp Anal Behav. 1959 Apr;2:91–106. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1959.2-91. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- MARGULIES S. Response duration in operant level, regular reinforcement, and extinction. J Exp Anal Behav. 1961 Oct;4:317–321. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1961.4-317. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- MCMILLAN D. E., PATTON R. A. DIFFERENTIATION OF A PRECISE TIMING RESPONSE. J Exp Anal Behav. 1965 Jul;8:219–226. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1965.8-219. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- SCHAEFER H. H., STEINHORST R. A. The effect of changing the schedule of reinforcement upon duration of responding. J Exp Anal Behav. 1959 Oct;2:335–341. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1959.2-335. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- THOMPSON T., HEISTAD G. T., PALERMO D. S. Effect of amount of training on rate and duration of responding during extinction. J Exp Anal Behav. 1963 Apr;6:155–161. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1963.6-155. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- ZIMMERMAN D. W. Durable secondary reinforcement: method and theory. Psychol Rev. 1957 Nov;64, Part 1(6):373–383. doi: 10.1037/h0041885. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- ZIMMERMAN J. Spaced responding in rats as a function of some temporal variables. J Exp Anal Behav. 1961 Jul;4:219–224. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1961.4-219. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]