Conditioned suppression of behavior maintained by intracranial stimulation as a function of stimulation intensity.
Stronger reinforcers make punishment less effective, so reinforcer intensity must guide punishment plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Russell (1975) tested how strong brain stimulation changes punishment effects. Rats pressed a lever for tiny electric pulses to the brain. A tone warned that shocks would come. The team varied the brain-stimulation strength across days.
They watched how much the tone slowed lever pressing. The goal was to see if stronger brain rewards make punishment weaker.
What they found
Higher brain-stimulation intensity cut the tone's power to stop pressing. Even when shocks still came, rats kept working for the stronger brain reward.
The result shows that reward strength, not just shock strength, sets how hard punishment hits.
How this fits with other research
Lea et al. (1977) ran a near-copy study and got the same pattern. Brain-stimulation rewards held up better against shock than food rewards, proving the effect crosses reinforcer types.
Reynolds (1968) showed that delaying shock makes weaker punishment. Russell (1975) flips the focus: stronger rewards also blunt punishment, even when shock is immediate.
Appel (1968) found that bigger shocks suppress faster. Russell (1975) adds that the reward side matters just as much as the punishment side.
Why it matters
When you plan punishment or extinction, check the reinforcer strength first. A child working for highly preferred items may need extra punishment intensity, or better yet, a different plan. Try fading the reward size first, then test if smaller punishers still work.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Conditioned suppression was demonstrated in two experiments with rats lever pressing on a fixed-ration 1 schedule for lateral hypothalamic intracranaial stimulation (ICS)'n Experiment I, conditioned suppression of responding for low-intensity ICS was obtained with a moderate intensity of foot shock, In Experiment II, low and high intensities of ICS were alternated within the same session and the same animal The suppression that was exhibited with low intensity ICS was minimal or absent with high-intensity stimulation, despite the pairing of foot shock with each warning stimulus. Conditioned suppression was a function of ICS intensity, and was independent of response rates. The inverse relationship between ICS intensity and degree os suppression is consistent with a motivational analysis of conditioned suppression. Previous reports of resistance to suppression of behaviors maintained by ICS may now be attributed to the use of high-intensity stimulation.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1975 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1975.23-277