Suppression of operant behavior and schedule-induced licking in rats.
Electric shock punishment can stop one rat behavior while leaving another untouched, and both bounce back fast when shock ends.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Scientists gave rats electric shocks for two different actions.
One group got shocked for pressing a lever. Another group got shocked for licking water during schedule-induced drinking.
They watched what happened to each behavior.
What they found
Shock stopped only the punished action.
If lever pressing was shocked, licking kept going. If licking was shocked, lever pressing kept going.
When shocks ended, both actions bounced back quickly.
How this fits with other research
Sadowsky (1973) ran an almost identical rat study the same year. He also saw that shock slowed the start of a response chain but did not break it mid-chain.
Davison et al. (1968) showed earlier that punishment cuts lever pressing equally on rich and lean reinforcement schedules. W et al. now add that it can pick off one behavior while sparing another.
Pear et al. (1971) compared bar-press versus dipper-lick suppression and found bar pressing was easier to suppress. W et al. confirm that licking is tougher to suppress, even when it is the target.
Why it matters
For BCBAs this means punishment can be laser-precise. You can cut one problem behavior without harming useful skills that occur at the same time. Because recovery is fast, you can quickly fade punishment and switch to reinforcement-based plans.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The first experiment studied the effects of punishment on rats' lever pressing maintained by a fixed-interval schedule of food reinforcement and on the associated schedule-induced licking. When licking was followed by shock, licking was suppressed but lever pressing was largely unaffected. When lever pressing was followed by shock, lever pressing was suppressed but licking was unaffected. In both cases, the punished behavior recovered its previous unpunished level when the shocks were discontinued. In a second experiment, the rats' lever pressing was maintained by a variable-interval schedule of food reinforcement under which polydipsic licking also developed. Both lever pressing and licking were partially suppressed during a stimulus correlated with occasional unavoidable electric shocks. With a higher shock intensity, both behaviors were suppressed further. Both lever pressing and licking recovered their previous levels when shocks were discontinued. These results show that schedule-induced licking, which has been described as adjunctive behavior, can be suppressed by procedures that suppress reinforced lever pressing, an operant behavior.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1973 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1973.20-375