Conditioned suppression of bar-pressing behavior by stimuli associated with drugs.
A light linked to drug effects can briefly stop operant behavior and just as quickly let it return.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers paired a white light with injections of chlorpromazine or LSD. They wanted to see if the light alone would later stop rats from pressing a bar for food.
Each time the drug was given, the light came on. After several pairings, they turned the light on without the drug and counted bar presses.
What they found
The light quickly cut bar pressing almost to zero. The rats acted as if the light itself made them feel bad.
When the light stopped predicting the drug, the suppression vanished in just a few sessions. The behavior bounced back fast.
How this fits with other research
Wilson et al. (1975) got the same rapid suppression by using electric shock instead of a drug cue. Both studies show that any strong aversive event—shock or drug—can punish behavior if it is signaled.
Wright (1972) also saw bar pressing drop fast, but that was during normal extinction with no food. Here, the light-drug pair created a brief emotional pause that wore off quicker than true extinction.
Hatton et al. (2005) gave mice chlordiazepoxide to speed up extinction after many sessions. The 1972 paper shows the opposite: a drug cue can suppress behavior early on, then disappear once pairings stop. Together they map how drugs can either slow or hasten behavior change depending on how they are used.
Why it matters
If you use cues paired with medication or sedation, know that the cue itself may briefly suppress client responding. The effect is short-lived, so plan for quick re-assessment once the cue no longer signals the drug state.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Ten naive male albino rats were trained to press a bar under a variable-interval 30-sec schedule with water as the reinforcer in two experiments. This behavior was disrupted by chlorpromazine in Experiment I (two rats) and by lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in both Experiment I (two rats) and Experiment II (six rats). The administration of the drug was paired with an originally neutral white light. After several pairings with either drug, the light also depressed behavior. When the light was no longer paired with drug, the depression effect extinguished much faster than is usually observed in conditioned suppression studies.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1972 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1972.17-127