A failure to reinforce instrumental behavior by terminating a stimulus that had been paired with shock

Escape from fear: A detailed behavioral analysis of two atypical responses reinforced by CS termination.

“…R. McAllister & McAllister, 1962; W. R. McAllister et al, 1974, 1983; Osborne et al, 1975; Spear et al, 1980), although responses such as rearing (Bolles & Tuttle, 1967), bar pressing (Dinsmoor, 1962), or wheel turning (Miller, 1948) have been investigated. It is now generally accepted that different responses are more readily learned in different tasks, a central tenet of behavior systems approaches (Akins, Domjan, Guitierrez, 1994; Bolles, 1971; Fanselow & Lester, 1988; Silva & Timberlake, 1997).…”

“…Further, it is likely that failures of EFF learning are underreported, since negative results are less often published (Bolles, 1971). Second, even in cases in which evidence for EFF learning exists, it has been argued that the learning is too weak to account for instrumental avoidance conditioning (Bolles, 1971;Bolles, Stokes, & Younger, 1966;Bolles & Tuttle, 1967). Third, because of design flaws, many examples of EFF learning can be explained by other processes, such as Pavlovian conditioning (Bolles, 1972b), pseudoconditioning (Baron, 1959;Grossberg, 1962), or differential punishment of other responses (Bolles, 1971(Bolles, , 1972a.…”

“…R. McAllister, McAllister, & Benton, 1983; W. R. McAllister, McAllister, Weldin, & Cohen, 1974; Miller, 1948; Osborne, Mattingly, Redmon, & Osborne, 1975; Quartermain & Judge, 1983; Spear, Hamberg, & Bryan, 1980), failures to obtain EFF learning are also common (Allison, Larsen, & Jensen, 1967; Baron, 1959; Bolles & Tuttle, 1967; Brown & Jacobs, 1949; Crawford, Masterson, & Wilson, 1977; Grossberg, 1962; Solomon & Brush, 1956). Further, it is likely that failures of EFF learning are underreported, since negative results are less often published (Bolles, 1971).…”

Choice of a Terminating Over a Non‐terminating Signal in Free‐operant Avoidance

“…While some studies show better acquisition or maintenance of responding that terminates a signal (e.g., Kamin, 1956;1957), others do not (e.g., Lewis, 1969;Verhave, 1959). Similar results led Bolles and Tuttle (1967) to suggest that "if there is an acquired negative reinforcement effect here (signal termination), it must be rather puny" (p. 256). Perhaps the problem lies in the use of the avoidance response itself as a measure of the reinforcing properties of signal termination.…”

“…These results led Lewis to suggest that signal termination may not be reinforcing. Others (e.g., Bolles and Tuttle, 1967) have suggested the same thing. It appears that other sources of control over avoidance responding in previous studies have obscured evaluation of the reinforcing effects of signal termination and that the present design overcomes these difficulties.…”