"Turning back the clock" on serial-stimulus sign tracking.
Pairing a dimmer stimulus with a delayed reinforcer quickly and lastingly stops sign-tracking behavior.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Pigeons pecked a key for food. Each peck made the stimulus clock "turn back." The key light dimmed and the next food delivery moved farther away.
The setback had two parts: weaker light and delayed food. The team tested each part alone and both together. They wanted to see which piece stopped the birds from pecking.
What they found
Dimming the light alone cut pecking right away. Delaying food alone worked more slowly but lasted longer.
Putting both setbacks together gave the fastest and strongest stop. The birds quit pecking almost at once and stayed quiet.
How this fits with other research
Arnett (1972) first showed that a response-dependent clock cue can slow fixed-interval responding. Allan et al. (1991) extend that idea by adding a reinforcer delay and proving the combo is even more powerful.
Wolchik et al. (1982) found that brief signaled delays can lower response rate. The 1991 setback design uses the same delay tool, but pairs it with stimulus dimming to magnify the suppressive punch.
Davis et al. (1976) used signal-shock timing to get either suppression or enhancement. W et al. mirror this temporal sensitivity: the order of setback events decides how fast and how long the behavior stops.
Why it matters
You now have a two-piece brake pedal. Weaken the stimulus or delay the reinforcer and the behavior drops. Do both and it drops like a rock.
Next time you need to cut a persistent, stimulus-bound response—like a child tapping a screen—try cutting the brightness and adding a short delay before the reward. You should see the tapping fade fast.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Two experiments examined the effects of a negative (setback) response contingency on key pecking engendered by a changing light-intensity stimulus clock (ramp stimulus) signaling fixed-time 30-s food deliveries. The response contingency specified that responses would immediately decrease the light-intensity value, and, because food was delivered only after the highest intensity value was presented, would delay food delivery by 1 s for each response. The first experiment examined the acquisition and maintenance of responding for a group trained with the contingency in effect and for a group trained on a response-independent schedule with the ramp stimulus prior to introduction of the contingency. The first group acquired low rates of key pecking, and, after considerable exposure to the contingency, those rates were reduced to low levels. The rates of responding for the second group were reduced very rapidly (within four to five trials) after introduction of the setback contingency. For both groups, rates of responding increased for all but 1 bird when the contingency was removed. A second experiment compared the separate effects of each part of the response contingency. One group was exposed only to the stimulus setback (stimulus only), and a second group was exposed only to the delay of the reinforcer (delay only). The stimulus-only group's rates of responding were immediately reduced to moderate levels, but for most of the birds, these rates recovered quickly when the contingency was removed. The delay-only groups's rates decreased after several trials, to very low levels, and recovery of responding took several sessions once the contingency was removed. The results suggest that (a) sign-tracking behavior elicited by an added clock stimulus may be reduced rapidly and persistently when a setback contingency is imposed, and (b) the success of the contingency is due both to response-dependent stimulus change and response-dependent alterations in the frequency of food delivery. The operation of the contingency is compared with the effects of secondary reinforcement and punishment procedures.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1991 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1991.56-427