Arousal: Its genesis and manifestation as response rate.

Abstract

The presentation of an incentive generates a small amount of arousal that decays exponentially over time. If the time interval separating successive incentives is short enough, arousal cumulates to an equilibrium level that is predictable from decay constants derived from the presentation of isolated incentives. The accumulation of arousal accounts for the "excessive" nature of scheduleinduced, or adjunctive, behaviors.These are revolutionary times for behavior scientists. At least three major lines of research -adjunctive behaviors (Falk, 1972), speciesspecific constraints on learning (Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Seligman & Hager, 1972), and sign tracking (Hearst & Jenkins, 1974;Schwartz & Gamzu, 1977)-have developed over the last decade in response to behavioral anomalies, with proponents of each noting the inconsistency of their subdiscipline with traditional theories of learning (cf. Bolles, 1976). The present article concerns adjunctive, or scheduled-induced, behavior and attempts to provide a rational basis for those "existentially absurd" (Falk, 1972) responses. Falk (1961 was the first to demonstrate that intermittent food schedules induce excessive drinking (polydipsia). He found that rats consumed over half their body weight in water over a 3-hour period, whereas they normally consume less than 10% over a 24-hour period.Since Falk's initial demonstration of polydipsia, a host of other schedule-induced behaviors have been identified (for review, see Falk, 1972;Staddon, 1977;Wallace & Singer, 1976). Many explanatory hypotheses, such as superstitious conditioning, have been advanced and subsequently eliminated. The most attractive rationale has been provided by Staddon

The Cover-Stimulus Effect: Role of Similarity in Durations of The CS and Cover Cues

“…As level of responding in Pavlovian preparations has been shown to vary with amount or rate of food delivery (Gibbon et aI., 1977;Mustaca, Gabelli, Papini, & Balsam, 1991;Ploog, 2001; but see Gibbon, Farrell, Locurto, Duncan, & Terrace, 1980), it is plausible that the effect of increased CS duration is mediated by the lengthening of programmed cycle duration and concomitant decrease in absolute reinforcer rate across groups. The effects of trial spacing may reflect arousal or activation phenomena in conditioning preparations (Killeen , Hanson, & Osborne, 1978;Tomie, Silberman, Williams , & Pohorecky, 2002). Accordingly, the present findings are consistent with separable roles of relative trial spacing as supporting associatively based performance, and absolute trial spacing as affecting performance via arousal mechanisms.…”

Behavioral characteristics and neurobiological substrates shared by Pavlovian sign-tracking and drug abuse

“…Corticosterone release is induced by experience with lever CS -food US paired sign-tracking procedures and is evident prior to the expression of sign-tracking CR performance. One possibility is that corticosterone induces a state of arousal (Merali et al, 1998; see also Killeen et al, 1978) that is conducive to the expression of sign-tracking CR performance (Tomie et al, 2002b(Tomie et al, , 2004b; moreover, higher levels of corticosterone are related to higher levels of alcohol drinking (Fahlke et al, 1994a, b) and the tendency to self-administer abused drugs (Piazza et al, 1989;Rouge-Pont et al, 1993;Lucas et al, 1998; for reviews see Piazza and Le Moal, 1996;Koob, 1999).…”

Dynamic changes in reinforcer effectiveness: Satiation and habituation have different implications for theory and practice

“…With the identification of sensitization, however, the habituation hypothesis can be expanded to explain both the increases (primarily sensitization) and decreases (primarily habituation) in operant responding. Sati-ation can also explain the increases in responding with the addition of another factor, such as arousal (e.g., Killeen, Hanson, & Osborne, 1978). But, this expansion is post hoc.…”