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An Analysis of the Function of Drugs in the Stimulus Control of Operant Behavior

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Abstract

Only in recent years have CNS-active drugs been found to act effectively as discriminative stimuli in the control of learned behavior. A recent review (Overton, 1968) noted that many classes of drugs have been successfully employed to exert discriminative control over behavior, across a variety of tasks, e.g., T-mazes (Overton, 1964, 1966; Barry, Koepfer, and Lutch, 1965), shuttle boxes (Bindra, Nyman, and Wise, 1965), conditioned fear situations (Heistad and Torres, 1959), and operant techniques (Barry and Kubena, 1967; Harris and Balster, 1968), and for a variety of reinforcers, e.g., food (Barry et al., 1965), water (Korman, Knopf, and Leon, 1963), and shock (Overton, 1966). Thus, the generality of the discriminative stimulus function of drugs has been adequately established.

This research was partially supported by USPHS Research Grant No. MH 14434. The authors wish to thank June Taylor, Dale Box, and especially Patti Stump for their assistance in conducting these experiments.

Partially supported by USAF Contract F2900-c-0014 with 6571st Aeromedical Research Laboratory, Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, New Mexico.

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References

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© 1971 Plenum Press, New York

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Harris, R.T., Balster, R.L. (1971). An Analysis of the Function of Drugs in the Stimulus Control of Operant Behavior. In: Thompson, T., Pickens, R. (eds) Stimulus Properties of Drugs. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0788-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0788-5_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-0790-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-0788-5

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