Control by the auditory or the visual element of a compound discriminative stimulus: effects of feedback.
Pick the sense that matches the payoff: visual for rewards, auditory for warnings.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a two-part cue: a light plus a tone.
Animals could earn food or avoid shock depending on the round.
The researchers asked which part of the cue the animals listened to.
They watched response rates when each part was played alone.
What they found
When food was on the line, the light ran the show.
When shock was possible, the tone took over.
Same cue, different boss—appetitive vs avoidance flipped control.
How this fits with other research
Kelly (1973) showed that how often you pay for a pause changes when pauses happen.
Renne et al. (1976) adds that why you pay—food or safety—also decides which sense the animal trusts.
Castelloe et al. (1993) looked at timeout length and saw tiny bias shifts; our paper says the rule type, not timeout, is the big lever.
Together, the three tell us: tweak the consequence first, then fine-tune the cue.
Why it matters
If you run a classroom token board plus a bell, check the contingency.
For desk work tied to stickers, lean on visual cards.
For escape-from-demands drills with a warning beep, trust the sound.
Match the strongest cue to the payoff the learner wants—or wants to avoid.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Groups of pigeons were trained to depress a treadle in the presence of a compound stimulus consisting of a tone and a red houselight (a) to avoid electric shock, or (b) to obtain grain. Immediate, exteroceptive feedback was equated for avoidance and appetitive groups within an experiment, but varied across experiments from elevation of a nonilluminated feeder to darkening of the chamber, termination of the tone, and elevation of an illuminated feeder. Responding in the absence of the compound stimulus postponed its next occurrence. After performance had stabilized, the degree to which each element controlled treadle pressing was determined. Generally, in the appetitive tests, the red light controlled much more responding than did the tone, but in the avoidance tests, the tone controlled more responding than did the red light.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1976 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1976.25-251