Training and Maintenance of Keypecking in the Pigeon by Negative Reinforcement

Abstract

Pigeons were trained to peck a key to escape a pulsing shock of linearly increasing intensity. As the rate of increase was varied from 0.0374 milliamperes per minute to 37.4 milliamperes per minute, the intensity at which most pecking occurred varied from 2.2 to 5.0 milliamperes.