Abstract
Pigeons were trained to peck for food during red and to nonpeck during green. Response-independent shock was then introduced and shock intensity regularly increased between successive sessions. As shock increased, the birds’ rate of pecking decreased to zero during green, but the rate of nonpecking failed to decrease. This result paralleled results reported by Rachlin and Herrnstein (1969) with a similar procedure except that shocks were response dependent. Therefore, their results do not demonstrate that a punishment contingency fails to weaken nonpecks.
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This research was supported by National Science Foundation Research Grant GB-27595. William Beavers is now at the University of Manitoba.
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Beavers, W.O., Perkins, C.C. Punishment of nonspecific responses: Does the negative half of the law of effect apply?. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 9, 14–16 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336914
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336914