A behavioral field approach to instrumental learning in the rat: I. Partial reinforcement effects and sex differences

Wong, Paul T. P.

doi:10.3758/bf03209123

Cited by 40 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…Behavioral variability has many causes: drugs and physiological states (Devenport, 1983), extinction of responding through withdrawal of reinforcement (Antonitis, 1951;Eckerman & Lanson, 1969;Lachter & Corey, 1982;Schwartz, 1982), increased demands for greater number of responses (Boren, Moerschbaecher, & Whyte, 1978;Eckerman & Vreeland, 1973;Ferraro & Branch, 1968;Stebbins & Lanson, 1962;Wong, 1977), random environmental events (Bandura, 1982), and so forth. Direct reinforcement of variability may have particularly beneficial effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reinforced variation and selection

Neuringer

1993

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Long-Evans rats were reinforced for generating variable sequences of four left (L) and right (R) leverpress responses. If the current sequence, for example, LLRR, differed from each of the preceding five sequences, then a food pellet was provided. Otherwise, there was a brief time-out. After the rats were generating a variety of sequences, one sequence was concurrently reinforced whenever it occurred, that is, an "always-reinforced" contingency was superimposed. The frequency of that sequence increased significantly from the variable baseline (Experiment 1). The "difficulty" of the always-reinforced sequence influenced the extent to which its frequency increased-"easy" sequences increased greatly, but "difficult" ones increased not at all (Experiment 2, and a replication with pigeons in Experiment 3). However, when reinforcement for baseline variability was systematically decreased while a difficult sequence was always reinforced, that sequence slowly emerged and attained relatively high levels (Experiments 4 and 5). Thus, a technique for training even highly improbable, or difficult-to-Iearn, behaviors is provided by concurrent reinforcement of variation and selection.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reinforced variation and selection

Neuringer

1993

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…The frustration reactions produced by different tasks are assumed by Amsel to have somewhat similar stimulus properties, so that rewarded high effort in one task would reduce the disruptive effects of frustration in subsequent tasks. A related view is that intermittent reward teaches an individual to sustain a general goal orientation ("try strategy") in the presence of frustration (Wong, 1977(Wong, , 1978(Wong, , 1979. According to these frustration theories, a student who was accustomed to receiving high grades in, say, mathematics would become upset if the usual amount of study began to produce low math grades.…”

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confidence: 99%

Accuracy Versus Speed in the Generalized Effort of Learning‐disabled Children

Eisenberger

Mitchell

McDermitt

et al. 1984

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Reinforcement of effortful performance in a given academic task has been found to increase the subsequent performance of other academic tasks. The learned-effort hypothesis assumes that individuals learn which dimensions of task performance are correlated with reinforcement of high effort, and generalize across tasks. Therefore, reinforcement of increased effort in a given dimension of one task should result in greater generalized effort in the same dimension of transfer performance than in another dimension. In accord with this view, preadolescent learning-disabled students who received points for high reading accuracy subsequently produced more accurate drawings and stories than did students whose points had been based upon high reading speed or upon mere completion of the reading task. Students who received points for high reading speed subsequently constructed stories more quickly than did children whose points had been based upon high reading accuracy or upon reading-task completion. Consistent with the more explicit and frequent feedback for accuracy than for speed in most academic tasks, generalized accuracy was much more durable than generalized speed.Key words: generalization of effort, speed, accuracy, performance dimensions, learnedeffort hypothesis, token economy, learning-disabled children Why are some students more persistent than others when given difficult academic tasks? Reinforcement interpretations emphasize the previous schedule of reward. Persistence on difficult academic tasks has been found to be greater following intermittent success than after continuous success, which is consistent with well known effects of intermittent reinforcement upon subsequent extinction. For simple sentences and difficult sentences that contained words beyond the children's reading ability. All the children were next asked to read a new set of difficult sentences. The children attempted a greater number of the new sentences following the mixture of success and failure than after success alone.Recent research indicates that reinforcing various types of increased effort can influence the subsequent performance of other types of reinforced behavior. With rats, for example, requiring a greater lever force or a greater number of lever presses per food presentation increased the subsequent persis-

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“…Therefore, it seems desirable to gain a more complete account of defensive burying by examining this phenomenon within the context of other behaviors occurring in the test situation. The present two experiments attempted to accomplish this by applying a behavioral field approach (Wong, 1977(Wong, , 1979 to the study of defensive burying. …”

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Defensive burying in the rat: A behavioral field analysis

Peacock

Wong

1982

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Time spent in various behaviors by the rat was recorded in a defensive burying paradigm. Experiment 1 revealed that rats spent more time burying the shock prod than a control prod and that doubling the size of the test chamber did not have a significant effect on the time spent in any behavior. In Experiment 2, the location of bedding material in a two-compartment test chamber was found to affect the occurrence of burying (both the shock and control prods) and burrowing behavior. Burying did not occur when bedding was not available in the shock compartment but was located in the escape compartment. Burrowing was more likely to occur when bedding was in both compartments than when it was in only one compartment. Immobility and escape latencies were shorter than burying latencies in all subjects. Burying was viewed as belonging to a second stage of defensive behavior. 103A new paradigm for the study of aversively motivated behavior has received considerable attention recently. Pinel and Treit (1978) found that rats shocked by one of two identical prods mounted on opposite walls of a test chamber returned to the shock prod and buried it using material available in the test chamber. Further investigation has indicated that the phenomenon, referred to as defensive burying, will occur over a variety of shock-test intervals (Pinel & Treit, 1978), with a variety of available materials (Pinel & , and following different sources of aversive stimulation (Terlecki, Pinel, & Treit, 1979;Wilkie, MacLennan, & Pinel, 1979). Thus, defensive burying appears to be a robust and reliable phenomenon. Treit (1978, 1979) argue that Bolles's (1970) hypothesis of species-specific defense reactions cannot readily account for defensive burying, which involves approach to the source of stimulation. According to Bolles (1970), whenever an aversive event occurs, an animal's behavioral repertoire is immediately restricted for a period of time to a narrow class of behavior. The animal will take flight, freeze, or threaten aggression. Although Treit (1978, 1979) maintained that the occurrence of freezing, fleeing, and aggressive behavior was rare in their studies, they have never reported systematic measures of any behavior other than burying. Since the mean time spent burying typically represents only a fraction of the total observation time in these studies, it is not clear what other behaviors occur in this situation.The relationship between defensive burying and other defense reactions is also brought into question by the results of a study by Pinel, Treit, Ladak, and MacLennan (1980), which indicated that the amount of burying appears to be influenced by the opportunity to perform competing defensive responses. It was found that increasing the opportunity for flight by increasing the size of the test chamber or by providing an escape compartment reduced but did not eliminate defensive burying.A striking feature of defensive burying reported by Pinel and Treit (1978) is the consistency with which rats selectively buried the shock prod. ...

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A behavioral field approach to instrumental learning in the rat: I. Partial reinforcement effects and sex differences

Cited by 40 publications

References 38 publications

Reinforced variation and selection

Reinforced variation and selection

Accuracy Versus Speed in the Generalized Effort of Learning‐disabled Children

Defensive burying in the rat: A behavioral field analysis

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