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CONDITIONAL ACCELERATION AND EXTERNAL DISINHIBITION OF OPERANT LEVER PRESSING BY PREREWARD, NEUTRAL, AND REINFORCING STIMULI
Author(s) -
Hemmes Nancy S.,
Rubinsky Hillel J.
Publication year - 1982
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.1982.38-157
Subject(s) - disinhibition , lever , operant conditioning , acceleration , psychology , computer science , cognitive psychology , reinforcement , neuroscience , social psychology , physics , engineering , mechanical engineering , classical mechanics
Rats responding under a differential‐reinforcement‐of‐low‐rate schedule increased their rates of lever pressing during a 20‐second click/flash stimulus that preceded the delivery of a response‐independent food pellet. The increase could not be attributed to suppression of collateral behavior that has been said to mediate temporally‐spaced responding. We propose that the prereward stimulus functioned as an external disinhibitor of lever pressing that had been inhibited by the constraints of the operant schedule. Support is derived from the observed disinhibitory effects of a 10‐second unpaired click/flash stimulus and of unsignaled, response‐independent pellets that were presented while the animals were responding under the same schedule.