An appetitive-aversive transfer experiment with rabbits determined that prior paired and unpaired tone CS and water US presentations, given in jaw-movement (JMl conditioning, respectively facilitated and retarded the acquisition of the nictitating membrane (NMl CR when the tone was subsequently paired with a shock US. In addition, the unpaired tone and water deliveries reduced the level of JM conditioning that was undertaken following the completion of NM CR acquisition. Finally, the reacquisition of the NM CR was accompanied by a large savings effect in contrast to the failure of the JM CR to display reacquisition savings. When the present findings are compared to the results of previous work addressing the influence of prior NM conditioning procedures upon subsequent JM CR acquisition, an asymmetry in appetitive-aversive interactions is indicated. This asymmetry encourages a reinterpretation of the opponent-process explanation of appetitive-aversive interactions. Moreover, the observed effects of the unpaired CS suggest the operation of a salience factor.
218According to the opponent-process model, which has been developed by several researchers (Gray,
Four experiments examined whether posttraining deliveries of drugs modified the performance of the rabbit's conditioned nictitating membrane response (NMR) during acquisition and extinction. The results show that ketamine accelerated, but that amphetamine, chlorpromazine, and scopolamine retarded, conditioning when the drugs were injected immediately after the completion of daily training sessions. However, all conditioning effects of the drugs were lost when their deliveries were delayed by 2 hr after the end of training. During extinction, the only drug that altered conditioned performance was ketamine. Specifically, ketamine retarded the rate of extinction when the drug was given immediately after training. However, delaying ketamine by 2 hr after training neutralized the drug's influence. These findings indicate that the NMR preparation should be useful in examining how the posttraining delivery of drugs influences associative processes in conditioning.
Two experiments were conducted to investigate the transfer effects of a conditioned stimulus, established under classical aversive conditioning of the rabbit's nictitating membrane response, upon subsequent classical appetitive conditioning of the jaw-movement response. The results indicated that (a) prior aversive conditioning interfered with appetitive conditioning; (6) membrane conditioned response (CR) performance decreased during jawmovement conditioning at a faster rate than expected on the basis of extinction; and (c) the occurrences of membrane CRs and jaw-movement CRs during jaw-movement conditioning were independent events. The results were discussed in terms of a reanalysis of possible factors governing outcomes of classical-instrumental transfer experiments and also were related to expectations based upon motivational theories of CR mediational effects.
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