Some determinants of inhibitory stimulus control.
You can create a strong "don’t respond" signal by thinning reinforcement or using DRL instead of extinction.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wahler (1969) worked with pigeons in a lab.
The birds pecked a key for food.
The team wanted to know if they could make a stimulus "stop" behavior without using extinction.
They tried two tricks: giving food less often (thinning the rate) and using a DRL schedule that only paid for slow pecks.
Both methods still gave some food, just less of it.
What they found
The birds pecked less when the light signaled low-rate or DRL conditions.
Their response formed a clean inhibitory gradient: fewer pecks as the signal got stronger.
The gradient looked just like the one you get with extinction, but food was still coming.
Bottom line: you can build "don’t respond" control without cutting reinforcement to zero.
How this fits with other research
Cicerone (1976) repeated the idea and added detail.
Under DRL, only long pauses came under stimulus control; quick pecks stayed wild.
That refines Wahler (1969): inhibitory control is selective, not total.
Flory et al. (1974) extended the story further.
They held the pigeons still and saw response rates jump and reinforcement drop.
Their finding pairs with Wahler (1969): low-rate control needs room for collateral behaviors like turning away.
Together the three papers show DRL can create inhibitory control, but only if the animal is free to use other moves.
Why it matters
You now have a gentler option than extinction when you want stimulus control over zero or low rates.
Try thinning reinforcement first or use DRL while letting the client engage in safe collateral behaviors.
You may get the "don’t respond" signal without the emotional fallout that extinction can bring.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Interspersed reinforcement and extinction during discrimination learning generate a U-shaped gradient of inhibition about the stimulus correlated with extinction. The present work showed that extinction is not a necessary determinant of inhibitory stimulus control. In Exp. I, a reduction in the rate of reinforcement, through a shift from a multiple variable-interval 1-min variable-interval 1-min schedule to a multiple variable-interval 1-min variable-interval 5-min schedule, resulted in a post-discrimination line orientation gradient of inhibition about the stimulus correlated with the variable-interval 5-min schedule. In Exp. II, the rates of reinforcement, correlated with a pair of stimuli, were held constant during a shift from a multiple variable-interval 1-min variable-interval 1-min schedule to a multiple variable-interval 1-min differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedule. Inhibitory stimulus control about the stimulus correlated with the differential reinforcement of low rate was obtained. In both experiments, a reduction in the rate of responding during one stimulus and behavioral contrast during the other stimulus preceded the observation of inhibitory stimulus control.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1969 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1969.12-443