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Biomedical subjects

B WEISS

Publications and source records attributed to B WEISS.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE GENERATED BY AN ON-LINE DIGITAL COMPUTER.

A LINC digital computer was used to generate an autoregressive schedule of reinforcement. On such a schedule the probability of reinforcement is a function of the similarity in duration of the intervals between successive responses. A detailed analysis of the data obtained from monkeys on this schedule demonstrated two distinct tendencies in their behavior: a tendency for periodic response and a tendency for serial dependence between successive interresponse times.

Animals↗

OVERT "MEDIATING" BEHAVIOR DURING TEMPORALLY SPACED RESPONDING.

A rat was trained on a schedule that programmed reinforcements only when a minimum waiting time between successive responses was exceeded (DRL schedule). It was observed to fill much of the pause between lever presses with a stereotyped behavioral chain: it would take its tail in its mouth and nibble it. This behavior was shown to be functionally related to the efficiency with which the subject spaced its responses. It is thought to have served as mediating behavior, providing discriminating stimuli for appropriate lever presses.

Amphetamine↗

CHARACTERISTICS OF AVERSIVE THRESHOLDS MEASURED BY A TITRATION SCHEDULE.

Three variables were studied for their single and joint effects on aversive thresholds obtained by a titration schedule with electric shock as the aversive stimulus. One variable was the interval between the periodic increments in shock amplitude. Another was the size of this increment. The third was the size of the decrement produced when the subject responded. Both monkeys and humans tolerated more shock at the shorter increment-to-increment intervals than at the longer ones, confirming rat data previously obtained. Reducing the decremental step size also led to an increase in the amount of shock tolerated by monkeys. In addition, simply reducing both incremental and decremental step size without changing the interval between increments led monkeys to tolerate more shock. The attempt to explain these data was based on the changes that such manipulations might produce in the amount of avoidance behavior elicited.

Animals↗