Positive reinforcement and suppression from the same occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus in a positive conditioned suppression procedure.
One stimulus can reward and punish at the same time—check both effects in your session data.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kelly et al. (1970) worked with lab rats pressing a bar for food.
They added a light that ended with mild brain stimulation.
The light sat on two schedules at once: it reinforced one response and suppressed another.
What they found
The same light helped brain-stimulation responding and hurt food responding.
One stimulus acted as both a friend and a foe, depending on the task.
How this fits with other research
Zeiler (1968) showed that lean food schedules make shock cues scarier. F’s rats also suppressed eating, but the cue was helpful elsewhere.
Zentall et al. (1975) later found that noise or light feedback alone can keep bar pressing high even when food is free. F’s study foreshadows this: a cue can reward even while it punishes.
Baron et al. (1966) paired noise with shock relief and turned it into a reinforcer. F used brain stimulation instead of relief, yet the cue still gained reinforcer power.
Why it matters
Your “good” reinforcer might be someone else’s stop sign. A praise beep that boosts manding could simultaneously kill a child’s independent play. Run separate probes for each response class before you call a stimulus a pure reinforcer.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Responding of rats was maintained on a variable-interval schedule of food reinforcement. The same response also produced a blinking light followed by electrical brain stimulation according to a fixed-interval schedule. This conjoint schedule produced two behavioral changes. First, instead of a steady rate of responding throughout the session, which would be characteristic of the variable interval food schedule alone, responding between occurrences of the light-brain stimulation pairings became positively accelerated and thus was more characteristic of the fixed-interval schedule of these pairings. Second, food responding was suppressed during the light that preceded brain stimulation. These results indicate that positive reinforcement and suppression resulted from the same occurrence of the light-brain stimulation combination. This finding suggests that stimuli such as conditioned reinforcers that precede an unconditioned reinforcer may have a suppressive effect upon responding in their presence that is being maintained by another reinforcer.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1970 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1970.14-247