Control of behavior by an establishing stimulus.
A cue grows stronger when the reinforcer it signals is kept small.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers worked with 17 pigeons in a lab. They wanted to see how strong a reinforcer needs to be for a special cue to control behavior.
The cue was an "establishing stimulus." It told the birds that pecking would soon pay off. The team made the payoff weaker or stronger across tests.
What they found
When the reinforcer was weak, the cue gained more power. The birds pecked more when the cue appeared.
When the reinforcer was strong, the cue lost some power. Pecking dropped. The cue's pull went up and down with reinforcer strength.
How this fits with other research
Ramer et al. (1977) showed the same seesaw effect. If one link in the chain is weak, the other link grows stronger. Attwood et al. (1988) now proves the rule for establishing stimuli.
Neuringer (1973) once saw flat control after simple presence-absence training. That looked like a clash, but the difference is training style. Neuringer (1973) gave no differential payoff, while Attwood et al. (1988) always tied the cue to a specific reinforcer value.
Aman et al. (1987) took the rule into a classroom. They used weak reinforcers to make kids ask for items. The bird lab and the kid lab tell the same story: weaker payoff makes the cue more urgent.
Why it matters
You can use this in therapy. If you want a cue to spark action, keep the payoff small at first. Save the big reinforcer for after the response. This trick works for mand training, token boards, or shaping new skills. Just watch the value and adjust the cue's power.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Start a new program with a small reinforcer paired to the cue, then upgrade the reinforcer after the first correct response.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Seventeen pigeons were exposed to a three-key discrete-trial procedure in which a peck on the lit center key produced food if, and only if, the left keylight was lit. The center key was illuminated by a peck on the lit right key. Of interest was whether subjects pecked the right key before or after the response-independent onset of the left keylight. Pecks on the right key after left-keylight onset suggest control of behavior by the left keylight-an establishing stimulus. In three experiments, the strength of center-keylight onset as conditioned reinforcer for a response on the right key was manipulated by altering the size of the reduction in time to food delivery correlated with its onset. Control of pigeons' key pecks by onset of the left keylight occurred on more trials per session when the center keylight was a relatively weak conditioned reinforcer and on fewer trials per session when the center keylight was a relatively strong condtioned reinforcer. Differences across conditions in the degree of control by onset of the establishing stimulus were greatest when changes in conditioned reinforcer strength occurred relatively frequently and were signaled. The results provide evidence of the function of an establishing stimulus.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1988 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1988.49-213