Transformation of a waiting schedule into a temporal regulation schedule (DRRD) by addition of external stimuli in the dog

Abstract

Waiting schedules do not impose temporal regulation but condition the animal to give the operant response during a given time. At the end of the required delay, a positive discriminative stimulus is presented. The suspension of the response while the discriminative stimulus is being given suspension of the response while the discriminative stimulus is being given is accompanied by reinforcement. The transformation of a waiting schedule into a temporal regulation schedule is generally achieved by suppressing the external facilitating factors or by physically modifying them. Our study reveals that a similar transformation can be achieved in the dog by the addition of a further stimulus. This stimulus, which is physically exactly the same as the excitatory stimulus and which punctuates the waiting period, is randomly introduced into the temporal delay. The absence of reinforcement in response to the added stimulus should force the animal to regulate its behavior in time and the additional negative discriminative stimulus favours the expression of the active nature of the inhibation. The results show that subjects can differentiate their response durations according to stimuli that only differ according to temporal location. Thus this pattern resembles a DRRD schedule. The peak of responses at the time of the inhibition stimulus reveals considerable behavioral conflict : either the response must be maintained or the inhibition suppressed. The positive or negative resolution of this conflict reveals noteworthy aspects of the behavioural inhibition process.