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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1964 May;7(3):233–239. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1964.7-233

Stimulus aspects of aversive controls: stimulus generalization of conditioned suppression following discrimination training1

Howard S Hoffman, Morton Fleshler
PMCID: PMC1404411  PMID: 14143911

Abstract

A tone ending with unavoidable electrical shock was periodically presented to pigeons while they pecked a key for food. A second group of birds was exposed to these tone-shock contingencies and also to a second tone which never ended with shock. The gradient of stimulus generalization following training to a single stimulus was symmetrical, whereas the gradient following discrimination training was asymmetrical, but there was no evidence of peak shift. During testing, suppression to all tones gradually extinguished and in both groups the slope of the gradient increased markedly. A second experiment with the discrimination birds revealed that free shock caused a recovery of the gradient, but the asymmetry persisted.

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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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