SOME EFFECTS OF CORRELATION BETWEEN RESPONSE‐CONTINGENT SHOCK AND REINFORCEMENT 1

Rats responded on a two‐component chain schedule in which a response‐contingent electric shock at the end of the first component was either positively correlated, negatively correlated, or uncorrelated with reinforcement availability in the second component. With 0.4‐ma shocks, rate in the first component depended on the shock‐reinforcement correlation: when shock and reinforcement availability were positively correlated, after extended exposure to the contingencies, rates exceeded those in the absence of shock; when shock and reinforcement availability were negatively correlated, responding was generally suppressed throughout. The discriminative control of shock over responding in the second component, in which reinforcement was available 50% of the time, also depended somewhat on correlation. However, rate change in the first component was not specifically related to discrimination in the second component. With 0.8‐ma shocks, responding was substantially suppressed in the first component at all three values of shock‐reinforcement correlations.