Lever holding under free-operant avoidance.
Rate of response under a free-operant avoidance procedure decreases as the response-shock interval increases. The present experiment demonstrated an inverse relation between rate of response and lever-holding time. An invariance was found in the total time per session that a subject was in contact with the lever. It is suggested that lever-holding behavior may be as sensitive as response rate to changes in the response-shock interval.
D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D004597:Electroshock; D011678:Punishment; D051381:Rats; D011930:Reaction Time