Operant aversive control and Pavlovian higher order conditioning

Abstract

Pigeons pecked a key for food on a multiple schedule, while pecking in one component also produced time-outs intermittently. The time-outs could be avoided by withholding responses appropriately, and they could be escaped either by responding or by not responding (in separate conditions). Partial suppression of responding during the time-out component was evidence for moderate punishment, and every time-out was escaped successfully. The escape behavior transferred to the warning signal signifying when responses would produce the time-out. The transfer occurred even if this behavior during the signal produced the aversive consequence. The result was that avoidance occurred only if the escape response was the omission of pecking. Responding during the signal was determined neither by its consequences nor by species-specific responses to a salient stimulus, but, rather, by the behavior occurring in the aversive environment itself.