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
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Stein et al. (1958) studied this question.