AUTOSHAPING: FURTHER STUDY OF “NEGATIVE AUTOMAINTENANCE”¹

Abstract

The key pecking of pigeons was autoshaped to three key colors paired with food in discrete trials. Then, the effects of three different color-correlated contingencies were compared: reward (presentation of food contingent on pecking), omission (presentation of food prevented by pecking), and extinction (no food). Two measures of performance were used: initial response (the number of trials with each color on which at least one peck was made) and multiple response (the total number of pecks per trial). In general, the reward color produced more pecking than the omission color, the omission color more than the extinction color, and the extinction color more than on blank trials with an unlighted key, although (relative to reward) omission produced a higher level of initial than of multiple responding. These results point clearly to the importance of stimulus-reinforcer continguity in the control of pecking.

Vertebrate-Invertebrate Comparisons

“…From the virtual absence of response to S-, it can be concluded that response to S+ was in fact due to the occasional pairings with w to (/) .9 z 0 .8 Q. sucrose. These results closely resemble those of an experiment on key-pecking in pigeons (Woodard et al 1974). …”

“…Experiments with vertebrates show that some conditioned appetitive responses, such as insertion of the head into the aperture of a feeder by rats, are strongly suppressed by omission training, while others, such as rearing by rats and key-pecking by pigeons, are not (Holland 1979;Woodard et al 1974), and the same is true of honeybees. As will be shown later, conditioned extension of the proboscis in response to a signal for food is not suppressed by omission training.…”

An omission procedure reorganizes the microstructure of sign-tracking while preserving incentive salience

“…For example, Locurto et al (1976) have found that lever contacts after sign-tracking are markedly reduced in rats moved to an omission schedule, with similar rates of lever contacts compared with rats exposed to extinction or random cue/reward delivery. However, typically, sign-tracking does not decline to zero (Atnip 1977;Eldridge and Pear 1987;Schwartz and Williams 1972a;Stiers and Silberberg 1974;Woodard et al 1974), suggesting some motivational persistence as well. Thus, sign-tracking CRs may be partly sensitive to contingency and partly under control of motivational forces that promote its persistence.…”

Topographical Variations in Behavior During Autoshaping, Automaintenance, and Omission Training

“…In a variation of autoshaping called omission training, a peck on the stimulus (referred to here as the conditional stimulus or CS) that is paired with a reinforcer cancels the reinforcer following the CS. This procedure typically results in substantially reduced levels of responding, indicating at least some measure of operant control (Atnip, 1977;Jenkins, 1981;O'Connell, 1979;Schwartz & Williams, 1972;Stiers & Silberberg, 1974;Wasserman, Hunter, Gutowski, & Bader, 1975;Williams & Williams, 1969;Woodard, Ballinger, & Bitterman, 1974). Several studies have described topographical changes from autoshaping to omission training; however, these studies have relied primarily on visual observation (e.g., Barrera, 1974) or on gross measures of the pigeon's position in the chamber (e.g., Hearst & Jenkins, 1974;Lucas, 1975;Wessells, 1974).…”