RESPONSE RATE, REINFORCEMENT FREQUENCY, AND CONDITIONED SUPPRESSION¹

Abstract

In the first of two experiments, periods of noise were terminated with unavoidable shock to 36 rats. The rats' continuously reinforced responding was later completely suppressed during the noise when it was introduced without shock. The rats were then assigned to nine experimental groups. Each group was exposed to different paced variable-interval schedules of reinforcement, which independently controlled response rate and reinforcement frequency. Periods of the noise were periodically superimposed on these schedules, and loss of response suppression was studied. Differences between the groups were assessed statistically. The second experiment used a steady-state design. Six rats were exposed to paced schedules which generated two alternating response rates but gave constant reinforcement frequencies, and six rats to schedules which maintained the same response rates throughout, but in which the reinforcement frequency was alternately high and low. Response suppression was studied during a pre-shock stimulus superimposed on each rat's two behavioral baselines. Both experiments suggest that (1) conditioned suppression is affected by rate of operant responding, high rates being most suppressed, and (2) the frequency of reinforcements obtained also has an effect, most suppression occurring when frequency is low.

Effects of Behavioral History on Resistance to Change

“…As noted above, with reinforcement rate equated, it has been shown several times that lower response rates are more resistant than higher response rates (see also Blackman, 1968;Lattal, Reilly, & Kohn, 1998; but see Fath, Fields, Malott, & Grossett, 1983). Accounts offered for this greater resistance of lower response rates have included, among others, the aversiveness of high response rates (Lattal et al), response elasticity (Nevin et aI., 2001), and operant response class size (Doughty & Lattal, 2001;Reed & Doughty, 2005).…”

Influence of the cost of responding

“…Different schedules of reinforcement promote markedly different patterns of responding in nonhumans (e.g., Ferster & Skinner, 1957). In addition, schedules have been noted to modulate basic behavioral processes such as positive and negative conditioned suppression (Blackman, 1968), reinforcer devaluation (Adams, 1982), and signaled reward effects (Reed, Schachtman, & Hall, 1988). Given the seemingly ubiquitous influence of schedules of reinforcement on behavior, coupled with the recent interest in the influence of the contingency between response and outcome on human judgments of causation, it would appear sensible to examine the role of schedules relating responses to outcomes in human judgments of causal effectiveness.…”

Spatial matching and nonmatching in male and female Wistar rats: Effects of delay-interval duration

“…Males also respond more often when food presentations are responsedependent, both in procedures that selectively reinforce low response rates (Millar, 1975;van Hest et al, 1987a) and in procedures in which high response rates are required for food to be presented (Heinsbroek, van Haaren, Zantvoord, & van de Poll, 1987;van Haaren, Heinsbroek, Louwerse, & van de Poll, 1986). Available data suggest that high response rates are more resistant to change than lower response rates (Blackman, 1968;Nevin, 1974), which might explain the less efficient discriminationreversal performance of males in free-operant conditioning procedures. Other experiments, however, will have to be designed to investigate this notion explicitly.…”