SOME EFFECTS OF TWO TEMPORAL VARIABLES ON CONDITIONED SUPPRESSION

Abstract

Estes and Skinner (1) have shown that operant behavior can be suppressed by the presentation of a stimulus that has been paired previously with an electric shock. In this demonstration of what the authors referred to as "anxiety" effects, a warning stimulus of fixed duration followed by a brief unavoidable shock to the feet was superimposed upon ongoing lever-pressing behavior maintained by a fixed- interval reinforcement schedule. Two values of the warning-stimulus duration (3 and 5.minutes) were reported in this study, and the one or two presentations of the