Reinforcement of behavior with cues correlated with extinction

Abstract

Pigeons pecking at a white key produced both occasional primary reinforcement and brief red "cue" lights. This procedure alternated with periods of extinction during which pecking only produced green cues. After extensive training, pecking remained at a high rate during extinction components> suggesting that the green cue served as a reinforcer for pecking in extinction. Yoked Ss receiving the same cues non-contingently tended to cease responding in extinction.

OBSERVING STIMULUS SOURCES THAT SIGNAL FOOD OR NO FOOD1

“…The amount of information transnitted by occurrence of nonoccurrence is directly related to the amount of uncertainty reduced and therefore inversely related to the probability of occurrence or nonoccurrence. 197 1973, 20, 197-207 NUMBER 2 (SEPTEMBER) ored by Berlyne (1957), Hendry (1969b), Schaub (1969), and Schaub and Honig (1967), among others.…”

Resistance to extinction as a function of mode and time of removal from goal box

“…The failure of the running response to resist extinction completely may be related to the relatively long escape latencies and the fact that many Sa tended to climb leisurely out of the goal box. Such behavior is atypical of that commonly associated with frustrative or aversive situations but adds support to recent doubts (Schaub & Honig, 1967;Wong & Pavlik,1966) concerning the aversive properties of cues associated with nonreward •…”

A TEST OF THE REINFORCING PROPERTIES OF STIMULI CORRELATED WITH NON REINFORCEMENT1

“…. Hendry and Coulbourn (1967), Schaub and Honig (1967), and Lieberman (1972) have presented studies supporting this prediction. Hendry and Coulbourn (1967), using pigeons, examined the "reinforcing effect of an informative stimulus that is not a positive discriminative stimulus".…”

“…The importance of pairing in establishing a neutral stimulus as a conditioned reinforcer has been questioned Miller, 1962, 1963;Hendry, 1969;Neuringer and Chung, 1967;Stubbs, 1971). A major alternative is the information hypothesis Miller, 1962, 1963;Hendry, 1969;Lieberman, 1972;Schaub, 1969;Schaub and Honig, 1967), which suggests that a crucial aspect of the pairing procedure is that the neutral stimulus reliably predict a biologically important event (e.g., delivery of food, receipt of shock); this predictive aspect of a stimulus, not temporal 'This report is based on a doctoral dissertation by the author submitted to the Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. The research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant GB-28224 to Florida State University (Dr. Michael E. Rashotte, principal investigator).…”

“…The authors argued that the only consequence of pecking the white key was a cue associated with nonreinforcement (green), although it is reasonable to suggest that during the whitekey portion of positive trials the green light maintained responding because it signalled that the trial was positive (i.e., that the key would turn red and food would be presented) and was thus serving as a positive discriminative stimulus. Schaub and Honig (1967) attempted to separate the discriminative and reinforcing functions of the stimuli in a discrimination procedure. Pairs of master-yoked pigeons were exposed to positive periods when food was available on a variable-interval 1-min schedule, and negative periods of extinction.…”