ROLE OF REINFORCEMENT AS A SYSTEM-FORMING FACTOR IN THE GENERATION OF PURPOSEFUL BEHAVIOR IN ANIMALS

Experimental findings are presented, indicating that it is appropriate to consider reinforcement as the principal system-forming factor not only for positive food reflexes but also for negative (extinction and differentiation) ones. In conditioned reflex activity, food reinforcement should be regarded as a system-forming factor that makes possible not only the generation, retention, and correction of a positive connection, but also a temporary elimination of such a connection if the reinforcement is too weak. As a system-forming factor, food reinforcement is taken to be a preterminal adaptive result whose usefulness depends on the terminal (metabolic) result. Nonreinfocement of conditioned signals elicits characteristic changes in the body that are always secondary.