The Role of Conditioned Reinforcement in the Acquisition and Maintenance of Omission Responding

Abstract

The role of the stimulus change accompanying food reinforcement, a potential conditioned reinforcer, in the development and maintenance of omission responding was examined in two omission paradigms. In the conventional response-terminated procedure a response during the trial stimulus immediately extinguishes the key light and initiates the intertrial interval (ITI), while in the standard fixed-trial procedure the trial stimulus terminates at the end of a fixed period of time irrespective of responding during the trial. A response during the trial stimulus in either procedure cancels the food reinforcement ordinarily available at the termination of the trial. In the present experiment, a particular key color was paired explicitly with food presentations on response-free trials. The conditioned reinforcing value of this stimulus was assessed in the fixed-trial and response-terminated procedures by presenting or withholding it at the end of trials containing a peck. The results suggest no critical role for conditioned reinforcement in the acquisition and maintenance of omission responding. For both procedures the rate of key peck acquisition, steady-state levels of responding, response latency and response rate were independent of the availability of conditioned reinforcement on food-omission trials. Moreover, the performances of subjects trained on the response-terminated procedure were no different from those of subjects exposed to the fixed-trial procedure.