Schedules using noxious stimuli. II: low intensity electric shock as a discriminative stimulus.
Low-level shock can act like a green light, but learning is slow and surer when the cue signals reward, not the absence of it.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tested whether a mild electric shock could work like a traffic light for rats.
When the shock came on, it told the rat which lever would pay off with food.
They ran the test two ways: shock meaning "press for food" and shock meaning "do not press."
What they found
The rats learned the rule, but it took many sessions.
Shock worked best when it signaled food was available.
When shock meant "no food," the rats still pressed a little, just less often.
How this fits with other research
Reynolds (1966) showed high-intensity sounds speed up learning. E et al. used low-intensity shock and saw slower learning. Together they say "louder or stronger cues teach faster."
AZRIN et al. (1963) kept rats pressing to escape shock. Their rats worked hard even for tiny breaks. E et al. show shock can also guide choices, not just drive escape.
Lowe et al. (1974) proved rats will dodge loud noise only after the noise was paired with shock. E et al. skip the pairing step and still get control, showing shock itself can be the cue.
Why it matters
You now know that even mild aversive events can become signals. If a client flinches when the lights flicker, that flicker may already be a cue. Replace it with a neutral cue first, then teach the new meaning. Expect slow going if the cue predicts "nothing good" rather than "something good."
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The presence or absence of pulses of low intensity electric shock was used as a discriminative stimulus to control responding under fixed ratio reinforcement in the squirrel monkey. Initially brief periods of nonreinforcement were lengthened only when discriminative control was evident. Discriminative control was studied by (1) varying the duration of nonreinforcement periods; (2) reversing the stimulus conditions correlated with reinforcement and nonreinforcement periods; and (3) determining the minimum shock intensity necessary to maintain discriminative control. Stimulus control was not reliably affected by d-amphetamine, chlorpromazine, or morphine. The discriminative control by pulses of low intensity electric shock was similar to that by other discriminative stimuli, except that the control developed slowly and was better when the pulsing shock was correlated with reinforcement than when correlated with nonreinforcement.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1967 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1967.10-109