Conditioned acceleration and conditioned suppression in pigeons

Two experiments were performed to investigate the effects on pigeons' keypecking behavior of stimuli that signal different kinds of aversive events: time-out from positive reinforcement, electric shock, loud noise, and loud tone. Behavior maintained by a variable-interval schedule of reinforcement was suppressed by a stimulus before shock, was accelerated by a stimulus before time-out from positive reinforcement, and was unchanged by a stimulus before loud noise or a stimulus before loud tone. Conditioned acceleration with time-out from positive reinforcement and conditioned suppression with shock were obtained regardless of whether a response contingent or response-independent procedure was employed.