Conditioned suppression and conditioned enhancement with the same positive UCS: an effect of CS duration.
Make the warning short and the child may stop; make it long and the same reward can push her to work faster.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Scientists looked at how long a warning light lasts before a rat gets sugar.
They tested three times: 12 seconds, 40 seconds, and 120 seconds.
Rats pressed a lever for food while the light came on and off.
What they found
The 12-second light slowed pressing almost to zero.
The 40-second light slowed it a little.
The 120-second light made the rats press faster than normal.
Same sugar, same light—only the length changed the result.
How this fits with other research
Rachlin (1966) saw the same flip earlier. Shock warnings slowed pigeons, but time-out warnings sped them up.
The idea is older: one cue can either brake or gas the same response.
Ginsburg et al. (1971) later showed that longer extinction gives bigger contrast.
Both studies say timing sets the direction of behavior change.
Together they tell us duration is a dial, not an on-off switch.
Why it matters
When you pair a cue with reinforcement, decide how long the cue will last. A short cue can shut down work; a long cue can boost it. Try a 2-minute praise window before giving a break and watch responding rise.
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Stretch your praise cue to 90-120 s before delivering the reinforcer and count if responses increase.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Previous experiments have shown that positively reinforced operant responding is suppressed during a conditioned stimulus terminated with an electric shock (conditioned suppression). In the present experiment, the conditioned stimulus was terminated with a positive unconditioned stimulus, and it was found that the duration of the conditioned stimulus was a key factor in determining whether response suppression or response enhancement was observed during the stimulus. The lever-pressing responses of rats were maintained by a variable-interval schedule of food reinforcement. While the rats were pressing the lever, a light was occasionally turned on, its offset coincident with a brief period of access to a sucrose solution. In consecutive blocks of sessions, the light duration was 40 sec, 12 sec, or 120 sec. Results showed that the rate of lever pressing was substantially suppressed during the 12-sec stimulus, slightly suppressed during the 40-sec stimulus, and enhanced during the 120-sec stimulus.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1970 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1970.13-67