Compounding of discriminative stimuli that maintain responding on separate response levers

Abstract

In Experiment 1, rats' responses were reinforced on a fixed-interval 30-sec schedule in the presence of either a light or a tone and were not reinforced in their absence. Each stimulus was correlated with its own response lever, with only one lever present during a session. When light and tone were compounded in the presence of the tone-correlated lever, no change in responding occurred. However, when tone was compounded with light in the presence of the light-correlated lever, level of responding was greater than to light alone (response summation). Summation was also found when each stimulus was correlated with the same lever. Next, light and tone were again correlated with separate levers, but both levers were always simultaneously present. Compounding produced both summation and emission of most responses on the light-correlated lever. This prepotency of light was reduced (1) by leaving a houselight on throughout the session; and (2) by correlating each stimulus with a different schedule (either fixed-interval 4.7-sec or fixed-interval 30-sec). With a medium- and high-intensity houselight and with the different reinforcement schedules, similar results were obtained during compounding, regardless of whether compounding occurred in the presence of the light- or tone-correlated lever.