![]() Kish and others (see Kish, 1965) found that laboratory animals will respond simply to produce an increase in illumination within the experimental chamber. ![]() An instructive case is research on light reinforcement. Michael's concerns extend to other types of reinforcement. The reinforcing event is better described as a change in stimulation without reference to the direction of the change. The experimenter could just as easily have paired the tone-off condition with pellet delivery for this reason, the distinction between onset and offset is irrelevant. Michael points out that although responding to produce the tone establishes its onset as a positive reinforcer, such a designation is quite arbitrary. A food-deprived rat's lever press produces a tone in whose presence food pellets are delivered when the tone is absent, lever pressing is ineffective. In his present remarks, Michael (2006) sharpens his argument with a hypothetical experiment. He should be given full credit for identifying the limitations of current views of positive and negative reinforcement. We are gratified that Jack Michael agreed that we had presented an accurate rendition of his original views ( Michael, 1975). Finally, we review Sidman's comments, which are most strongly at odds with our point of view. ![]() Lattal and Lattal then expand on these themes by making special reference to ways that historical-cultural forces can perpetuate theoretical distinctions despite evidence to the contrary. ![]() We then discuss Chase's article, in which he offers reasons why the distinction has been maintained over the years (particularly its role in education), and Iwata's, which considers the role of the distinction within applied behavior analysis. We follow with Marr's comments that raise overarching conceptual issues that run through all the commentaries. It seems fitting to begin with a discussion of Michael's contribution, in part because his seminal 1975 paper provided the impetus for our review, and also because he provides additional support for the conclusions we reached. However, when possible, we consider common themes. Each set of comments raised unique and interesting points, and this led us to reply to them on an individual basis. We thank them for their thoughtful critiques and hope that others will join the discussion in the future. Our purpose was to promote much-needed discussion, and we are pleased that a number of distinguished behavior analysts have offered their comments in this issue of The Behavior Analyst ( Chase, 2006 Iwata, 2006 Lattal & Lattal, 2006 Marr, 2006 Michael, 2006 Sidman, 2006). (c) Despite this apparent consensus, the logical and conceptual questions raised about the distinction 30 years ago by Michael (1975) have not been confronted, let alone refuted. (b) To judge from discussions in the literature, the distinction is straightforward: The designations positive and negative pertain to the direction of stimulus change, that is, whether a stimulus is presented (positive) or removed (negative). In our previous article about positive and negative reinforcement ( Baron & Galizio, 2005), we made three points: (a) The customary distinction between positive and negative reinforcement continues to play an influential role in the analysis of behavior.
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