An experimental comparison of secondary inhibition and secondary reinforcement.

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Abstract
To test the hypothesis that a negative discriminatory stimulus has inhibitory functions analogous to the reinforcing properties of a positive discriminative stimulus, two experimental groups of rats were given preliminary training in an alley, associated with a buzzer for either reinforced or non-reinforced trials; control groups did not receive the alley-buzzer training. All groups were trained to criterion on a black-white discrimination problem with 5 sec. delay of reward. During the delay buzzer-sounds were given in association with either correct and reinforced trials or incorrect and non-reinforced trials. Both of the groups that had previous alley experience with the buzzer were superior to their controls, and control groups with buzzer were superior to the non-buzzer control group. It is concluded that "both negative and positive discriminative functions, when established, carry over to the black-white discriminative problem and become immediately effective, thus indicating that the phenomenon of secondary inhibition does exist." 17 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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