Operant behavior and the galvanic skin potential under DRL schedule.
DRL locks in a tight wait-time just past the minimum, and unreinforced responses spike skin arousal, so protect the pause from extra cues.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team used a DRL schedule. DRL means the animal must wait a set time between presses or the press does not count.
They recorded two things at once: how long the animal waited and tiny skin-potential blips. Skin potential shows brief arousal, like a mini lie-detector trace.
The goal was to see if the wait time and the skin blips move together.
What they found
Most presses came right after the minimum wait ended. The animals rarely pressed early.
Unreinforced presses gave bigger skin blips than reinforced ones. During extinction the blips shrank below the trained level.
How this fits with other research
FERRARO et al. (1965) saw the same wait-time clump one year earlier in rats. Their data add a neighbor effect: a reinforced wait makes the next reinforced wait more likely.
REYNOLDS (1964) mapped the wait-time shape in pigeons two years before. Hunger and extinction shifted the whole curve, giving an early baseline for the new skin-potential layer.
Segal (1962) added speed: amphetamine shortened the waits but kept the same curve shape. That shows the drug acts on motor speed, not on the internal clock that DRL taps.
Berler et al. (1982) later showed a light that merely signals free food can burst the DRL pause. Their external-disinhibition effect warns that extra cues can wreck the wait you just trained.
Why it matters
DRL is your go-to when a client responds too fast—stereotypy, rapid requests, or double-clicking. This study reminds you that the pause is fragile. Anything that predicts reward too soon, even an accidental staff glance, can pop the wait. Guard the silence. Start the interval timer only after you deliver the last reinforcer and keep the room bland until the next legal response.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Motor and galvanic skin potential (GSP) activity were investigated during the conditioning, extinction, and reconditioning of motor responses under a differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL) schedule of reinforcement. Interresponse time (IRT) distributions for motor responses during conditioning and reconditioning gradually stabilized at a peak just beyond the minimal IRT required for reinforcement. Few unreinforced motor responses and "bursts" of motor responses were observed during conditioning and reconditioning. Relative to conditioning and reconditioning, extinction effected larger IRTs and smaller GSP amplitudes. GSP amplitudes were greater for unreinforced than for reinforced motor responses during conditioning and reconditioning. However, GSP amplitudes associated with the unreinforced extinction responses were smaller than either the reinforced or unreinforced responses during conditioning and reconditioning.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1966 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1966.9-121