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EFFECTS OF RESPONSE‐SHOCK INTERVAL AND SHOCK INTENSITY ON FREE‐OPERANT AVOIDANCE RESPONDING IN THE PIGEON 1
Author(s) -
Klein Marty,
Rilling Mark
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1972.18-295
Subject(s) - shock (circulatory) , avoidance response , intensity (physics) , interval (graph theory) , operant conditioning , psychology , zoology , medicine , biology , social psychology , physics , mathematics , neuroscience , reinforcement , optics , combinatorics
Two experiments investigated free‐operant avoidance responding with pigeons using a treadle‐pressing response. In Experiment I, pigeons were initially trained on a free‐operant avoidance schedule with a response‐shock interval of 32 sec and a shock‐shock interval of 10 sec, and were subsequently exposed to 10 values of the response‐shock parameter ranging from 2.5 to 150 sec. The functions relating response rate to response‐shock interval were similar to the ones reported by Sidman in his 1953 studies employing rats, and were independent of the order of presentation of the response‐shock values. Shock rates decreased as response‐shock duration increased. In Experiment II, a free‐operant avoidance schedule with a response‐shock interval of 20 sec and a shock‐shock interval of 5 sec was used, and shock intensities were varied over five values ranging from 2 to 32 mA. Response rates increased markedly as shock intensity increased from 2 to 8 mA, but rates changed little with further increases in shock intensity. Shock rates decreased as intensity increased from 2 to 8 mA, and showed little change as intensity increased from 8 to 32 mA.