Abstract
Pigeons learned a successive discrimination between a positive stimulus (red) correlated with a variable-interval 1-min reinforcement schedule and a negative stimulus (vertical line) correlated with either a variable-interval 5-min schedule or extinction. Transfer tests measured the rate of responding to the positive stimulus alone, to various orientations of the negative stimulus, and to the same line orientations superimposed on the positive stimulus. Although there were no gradients with minima at the training value for the negative stimulus dimension, the addition of the negative stimulus dimension to the positive stimulus always resulted in a lower response rate than that for the positive stimulus alone. The results demonstrate that an operational definition of inhibitory stimulus control that requires increased responding to stimuli more distant from a negative stimulus (along some dimension) is not always consistent with a definition that requires the suppression of responding in the presence of one stimulus, the positive stimulus, by the simultaneous presentation of another, the negative stimulus.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Brown P. L., Jenkins H. M. Conditioned inhibition and excitation in operant discrimination learning. J Exp Psychol. 1967 Oct;75(2):255–266. doi: 10.1037/h0024985. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lyons J. Stimulus generalization as a function of discrimination learning with and without errors. Science. 1969 Jan 31;163(3866):490–491. doi: 10.1126/science.163.3866.490. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- NEWMAN F. L., BARON M. R. STIMULUS GENERALIZATION ALONG THE DIMENSION OF ANGULARITY: A COMPARISON OF TRAINING PROCEDURES. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1965 Aug;60:59–63. doi: 10.1037/h0022334. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- doi: 10.1901/jeab.1969.12-481. [DOI] [PMC free article] [Google Scholar]
- REYNOLDS G. S. Behavioral contrast. J Exp Anal Behav. 1961 Jan;4:57–71. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1961.4-57. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Terrace H. S. Discrimination learning and inhibition. Science. 1966 Dec 30;154(3757):1677–1680. doi: 10.1126/science.154.3757.1677. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]