Molecular contingencies in schedules of intermittent punishment.
Punishment hits the response it follows, so aim with microscope-level care.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Koegel et al. (1992) worked with lab animals on a VI food schedule.
They added mild electric shocks, but only after certain pauses between responses.
The team asked: does the exact timing of each shock change the response pattern?
What they found
Shocks that followed specific pauses trimmed only those pause lengths.
Other pauses stayed the same.
The result shows punishment works moment-to-moment, not by overall shock rate.
How this fits with other research
Tanno et al. (2008) later saw the same fine-grain control with reinforcement.
They found VR and VI differences came from which pauses earned food, matching the punishment story.
Zimmerman (1969) once showed shock under FI can actually raise responding, seeming to clash.
The difference is schedule: W used shock to maintain behavior, L used it to cut specific pauses.
DARDANO et al. (1964) also picked which part of an FR chain to punish and saw spot-on suppression, previewing the 1992 IRT method.
Why it matters
For BCBAs, the lesson is precision. Deliver a punisher right after the exact response or pause you want to drop.
Waiting or scattering consequences across time waters down the effect.
Next time you thin reinforcement or add response cost, tie the consequence to the micro-behavior, not the whole session.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In two experiments, key pecking of pigeons was maintained by a variable-interval 180-s schedule of food presentation. Conjointly, a second schedule delivered response-dependent electric shock. In the first experiment, shocks were presented according to either a variable-interval or a nondifferential interval-percentile schedule. The variable-interval shock schedule differentially delivered shocks following long interresponse times. Although the nondifferential shock schedules delivered shocks less differentially with respect to interresponse times, the two shock schedules equally reduced the relative frequency of long interresponse times. The second experiment differentially shocked long or short interresponse times in different conditions, with resulting decreases in the relative frequency of the targeted interresponse times. These experiments highlight the importance of selecting the appropriate level of analysis for the interaction of behavior and environment. Orderly relations present at one level of analysis (e.g., interresponse times) may not be revealed at other levels of analysis (e.g., overall response rate).
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1992.58-361