Separation of the Salivary and Motor Responses in Instrumental Conditioning

Abstract

If an instrumental conditioning schedule is arranged so that a dog must repeatedly perform a movement in response to one stimulus in order to secure the presentation of another stimulus, which is then followed by food, a virtually total separation of motor and salivary responses is observed. The first stimulus elicits the trained movement without salivation, and the second stimulus elicits salivation without instrumental responding. These experiments show a relative independence between classical and instrumental conditioned responses and clarify the rather complex relations between the two in the usual experimental procedure.