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SELECTIVE SENSITIVITY OF SCHEDULE‐INDUCED ACTIVITY TO AN OPERANT SUPPRESSION CONTINGENCY
Author(s) -
Allan Robert W.,
Matthews T. James
Publication year - 1992
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.1992.58-471
Subject(s) - pecking order , operant conditioning , reinforcement , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , locomotor activity , audiology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , social psychology , cognitive psychology , biology , medicine , endocrinology , evolutionary biology
The sensitivity of pigeons' schedule‐induced activity to operant consequences was studied in two experiments. During a 30‐s interval between food presentations, a keylight stimulus brightened incrementally. Stable terminal key pecking and interim locomotor activity developed. An operant “setback” contingency was applied to activity. The contingency arranged for locomotor movements (detected by a nine‐panel floorboard) to be followed by a resetting of the keylight brightness to a dimmer value and a 1‐s delay of reinforcement (for individual responses). Experiment 1 showed that activity patterns were highly sensitive to their operant consequences. Accompanying key‐peck rates were only transiently affected. In Experiment 2, the setback contingency was imposed during restricted portions of the trial, and differential operant control of activity was demonstrated. However, birds in this study produced higher rates of key pecking as activity rates were reduced. These results suggest that although schedule‐induced activity arises in response to the temporal arrangement of stimulus events, this behavior may retain considerable sensitivity to response‐consequence relations.