An Attempt to Establish Secondary Reinforcement with Rewarding Brain Stimulation

Abstract

Previous attempts to demonstrate secondary reinforcement with rewarding brain stimulation as the primary reinforcer have yielded contradictory results. Further investigation of this problem seemed warranted especially in view of the potential importance of the secondary reinforcement procedure in the investigation of neural associative processes during learning. It was found that a peripheral stimulus, which had been paired with rewarding brain stimulation, did not acquire secondary reinforcing properties. Several reasons were suggested to account for the failure to demonstrate secondary reinforcement.