Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
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The effects of different voltages of response-dependent and response-independent electric shock on the frequency of key-peck responses engendered by an autoshaping procedure were studied. In Experiments I and II, each response produced a brief electric shock, and response frequency generally decreased more with higher-voltage shock. Preshock frequencies of responding were generally recovered across successive sessions of relatively low-voltage shock delivery but not at higher shock voltages. ⋯ In the final experiment, one response-independent shock per autoshaping trial was scheduled. The number of autoshaped responses per trial was related to shock voltages. These results suggest that response-dependent and response-independent electric shock effectively decrease frequency of autoshaped responses.