Concurrent performances: inhibition of one response by reinforcement of another.
Paying for one behavior can quietly shrink another behavior under concurrent schedules.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Pigeons pecked two keys.
Food reinforced pecks on one key.
The team watched pecks on the other key.
They wanted to see if paying for one action would drop the other action.
The birds worked on concurrent schedules.
What they found
Reinforcing pecks on the paid key cut pecks on the unpaid key.
The drop was not about the birds being tired.
It was about the fight between two reinforcement schedules.
When one schedule paid off, the other behavior shrank.
How this fits with other research
Neuringer (1973) later showed that stopping payment altogether (extinction) cuts responding even faster than free food that ignores the bird.
That study also proved the rise in the other key (contrast) only shows up with extinction, not with free food.
SIDMAELLIOTT et al. (1962) found the mirror image: punishment of one key raised pecks on the other key.
Together the papers show that both punishment and reinforcement can push around a second behavior, but through different paths.
The 1969 paper is the first clear lab proof that reinforcement alone can inhibit a competing response.
Why it matters
When you run two programs at once, watch for schedule interference.
If you reinforce greeting peers, independent play may drop without extra help.
Check the untreated behavior before you add more interventions.
Plan your reinforcement so wanted behaviors do not accidentally smother each other.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Graph both target behaviors when you add a new reinforcement program to be sure one does not fall off.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
In an analysis of interactions between concurrent performances, variable-interval reinforcement was scheduled, in various sequences, for both keys, for only one key, or for neither key of a two-key pigeon chamber. With changeover delays of 0.5 or 1.0 sec, and with each key's reinforcements discriminated on the basis of key-correlated feeder stimuli, reinforcement of pecks on one key reduced the pecking maintained by reinforcement on the other key. The decrease in pecking early after reinforcement was discontinued on one key was not substantially affected by whether pecks on the other key were reinforced, but after reinforcement was discontinued on both keys, reinstatement of reinforcement for one key sometimes produced transient increases in pecking on the other key. Correlating the availability of right-key reinforcements with a stimulus, which maintained right-key reinforcement while reducing right-key pecking to negligible levels, demonstrated that these interactions depended on concurrent reinforcement, not concurrent responding. Thus, reinforcement of a response, but not necessarily the occurrence of the response, inhibits other reinforced responses. Compared with accounts in terms of excitatory effects of extinction, often invoked in treatments of behavioral contrast, this inhibitory account has the advantage of dealing only with observed dimensions of behavior.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1969 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1969.12-731