Behavioral Interactions Under Noxious Environments.

Current behavior is often dramatically affected by prior behavioral consequences, by other ongoing behavior and by conditions existing under different environmental contexts. This research program was initiated to focus on these factors as they act singly or interact together to influence the development, maintenance and modification of behaviors controlled predominately by noxious events. Of particular interest were possible interactions occurring between behaviors separated temporarily and under the control of different stimuli (multiple schedules), and those behaviors that can occur simultaneously (concurrent schedules). Experiments conducted during the past year have analyzed a wide variety of conditions under which different schedules of electric shock maintained quiet different behaviors. It was found that behavioral effects of environmental events also depend on the behavioral history of the individual. The research has demonstrated the feasibility of developing a vast range of complex behavioral performances that can be differently and precisely controlled by the same aversive event.