Producing either positive or negative tendencies to a stimulus associated with shock.
A stimulus that ends discomfort can work like reinforcement and keep behavior alive.
01Research in Context
What this study did
EVANS (1962) asked a simple question. Can a tone become a reinforcer if it ends a shock?
Pigeons pecked for food. A tone played. Sometimes the tone started with a shock. Sometimes the tone ended a shock.
The team watched how fast the birds stopped pecking when the shocks stopped.
What they found
Tone that ended shock slowed extinction. The birds kept pecking longer.
Tone that started shock sped extinction. The birds quit faster.
A stimulus tied to relief can act like candy for behavior.
How this fits with other research
SHETTLEWORTCHARNEY et al. (1965) saw the same lab earlier. Contingent shock killed responding fast but also faded fast. Non-contingent shock lingered longer.
Robinson et al. (1974) later flipped the rule. Non-contingent shock created stronger suppression than contingent shock. The three studies together show timing and contingency matter more than the shock itself.
Zeiler (1968) added another layer. On a DRL schedule the same tone-shock pair can speed responding, while on an FI schedule it slows it. Baseline schedule decides if the stimulus helps or hurts.
Why it matters
You can turn an escape cue into a reinforcer. Pair a brief song, beep, or click with the end of a hard task. The cue itself will now strengthen the response that produces it. Use this to build persistence during extinction or to maintain low-rate behavior without extra goodies.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Pick a brief auditory cue. Deliver it right as a client finishes a tough demand. Watch the task completion rate rise across the week.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
A technique is described in which rats are pretrained with reinforcement to bar press. Each bar press was associated with a tone. This tone was later paired with one of two aspects of an electric shock, either at the onset or at the end of the shock, in a situation in which the shock is inescapable. These animals were retested in the operant situation under conditions of extinction, but with tone present as a conditioned reinforcer. The finding was that animals for which the tone was associated with shock onset extinguished quickly, whereas animals for which the tone was paired with shock termination extinguished more slowly.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1962 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1962.5-335