Behavioral parameters of drug action: signaled and response-independent reinforcement.
Drug effects hinge on the behavior already in place: amphetamine boosts high-rate behavior at low doses, while phenobarbital can lift low-rate behavior.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Scientists gave pigeons amphetamine or phenobarbital while the birds pecked for food.
Some birds worked on a fast pecking schedule. Others worked on a slow schedule.
The team watched how each drug changed the birds’ peck rate.
What they found
Low-dose amphetamine sped up birds that were already pecking fast.
High-dose amphetamine slowed those same birds down.
Phenobarbital did the opposite: it made slow-pecking birds peck a little faster.
The drug effect depended on the baseline behavior, not just the drug.
How this fits with other research
Matthews et al. (1987) later saw the same baseline rule with methadone. Pigeons that had a slow-peck history got sensitive to the first dose and then built tolerance faster.
Verhave (1958) had already shown methamphetamine changes pecking, but without splitting fast and slow schedules. Thompson et al. (1974) sharpened the picture by showing the exact curve: up at low dose, down at high dose.
Hake et al. (1983) reviewed these lab curves and told BCBAs, "Watch the baseline. The same drug can help or hurt depending on the behavior you have on the chart."
Why it matters
If a client takes stimulants or sedatives, look at their response pattern before the dose. A child who already taps or flaps fast may tap even faster on a low stimulant. A child who moves slowly may show a small boost after a sedative. Track rate on the chart, not just “good” or “bad” days. The drug-baseline match gives you the clearest signal for dose or timing changes.
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Join Free →Graph the target behavior for three days, note its baseline rate, then watch if the first low stimulant dose raises or lowers that rate.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Four pigeons were initially trained under a multiple variable-interval 1-min variable-interval 1-min schedule of food reinforcement. For two of the pigeons, a signal was then presented whenever the reinforcer was available in one component; this resulted in positive contrast. For the other two pigeons, the reinforcer was presented independently of responding on a variable-time schedule in one component; this resulted in negative induction. After 30 to 50 sessions, however, a similar degree of differential responding occurred under both multiple schedules, i.e., high rates in the variable-interval component and low rates in the other component. Reinforcement frequency remained about the same in each of the schedule components. The stable performances then served as baselines for studying drug effects. In the high-rate component of both multiple schedules, small doses of d-amphetamine increased responding, whereas larger doses decreased responding. In the low-rate component of both multiple schedules, there was no rate-increasing effect at any dose of d-amphetamine; such an effect was found, however, with phenobarbital at a dose that decreased responding in the high-rate component. The drug effects thus depended on the interaction of pharmacologic variables (specific drug and dose) with behavioral variables (schedule components).
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1974.21-151