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BEHAVIORAL CONTRAST WITHOUT RESPONSE‐RATE REDUCTION 1
Author(s) -
Halliday M. S.,
Boakes R. A.
Publication year - 1974
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.1974.22-453
Subject(s) - stimulus (psychology) , reinforcement , audiology , psychology , neutral stimulus , stimulus control , contrast effect , contrast (vision) , artificial intelligence , social psychology , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , medicine , computer science , nicotine
Behavioral contrast was obtained in two experiments, which both employed a standard free‐operant successive discrimination (a multiple variable‐interval extinction schedule), without the occurrence of reductions of response rate in the extinction component. In Experiment I, one group of four pigeons was trained on a multiple schedule in which one stimulus was associated with a variable‐interval schedule and the second stimulus with response‐independent reinforcement on a free variable‐interval schedule. Though by the end of this training three pigeons were responding very little to the second stimulus, when this stimulus was associated with extinction all subjects showed a contrast effect. In Experiment II, eight pigeons were trained extensively to respond to a single stimulus on a variable‐interval schedule, before a second stimulus associated with extinction was introduced. This second stimulus was dissimilar to the initial stimulus and five pigeons never responded in its presence. Nevertheless, all pigeons showed a contrast effect and there was no evidence that the effect was smaller in errorless subjects or smaller than in a subsequent discrimination where all subjects made many errors. Both experiments indicated that response reduction in one component of a multiple schedule is not a necessary condition for the occurrence of contrast.