Behavior during shock exposure as a determinant of subsequent interference with shuttle box escape–avoidance learning in the rat.

Abstract

Two experiments were designed to determine the influence of behavior during shock on subsequent impairment of conventional shuttle escape-avoidance learning in the rat. Amount of activity during shock was manipulated by an explicit negative reinforcement procedure for nonmovement during an otherwise movement-producing shock. Only head and shoulder inactivity (measured by means of head panels) was required to escape shock in Experiment 1, whereas whole-body immobility (transduced with an ultrasonic motion detector) was required in Experiment 2. Yoked groups received physically identical but inescapable shock treatments; unrestrained and restrained groups were not shock treated in either study. The results of both experiments indicated that of the two shock treatments, the escapable shock condition resulted in lower overall terminal movement levels during treatment shock as well as in greater subsequent impairment of shuttle box escape-avoidance performance. Also it was observed that maximum levels of interference were sustained for a longer period during testing following the escapable shock procedure ,in Experiment 2 that involved whole-body inactivity. These results suggest that behavior during shock rather than shock uncontrollability may be the critical determinant of subsequent shuttle interference in the rat. These findings are viewed as support for a general competing-response conception of shuttle interference effects.Impairment of conventional, two-way, led to the now well-known view that unconescape-avoidance learning has been shown in trollability, that is, inescapability, of shock is dogs after exposure to a treatment involving the sole determinant of this so-called shuttle a series of inescapable shocks (

Influence of postpartum shock controllability on subsequent maternal behavior in rats

“…For example, the proponents of the leamed-inactivity or competingresponse hypothesis assume that the actual presence of shock in most helplessness studies mediates the transfer of competing forms of behaviors from the inescapable to the subsequent aversive test situation (e.g., Anderson et al, 1979). However, there was no shock or specific aversive stimulus present during the posttriadic observations of maternal behavior in the present experiment.…”

Conditioned fear and neophobia following inescapable shock

“…Early interpretations of this helplessness effect emphasized the acquisition of cognition (Seligman & Maier, 1967) or behavior (Anderson, Crowell, Cunningham, & Lupo, 1979;Bracewell & Black, 1974;Glazer & Weiss, 1976) during exposure to inescapable shock that emerged during later testing to interfere with escape performance. More recent hypotheses, however, attribute the differential effects of escapable and inescapable shock to their anxietyprovoking characteristics (e.g., Gray, 1982;Mineka, Cook, & Miller, 1984;Minor, Dess, & Overmier, in press;Minor & LoLordo, 1984;Weisset al, 1982;Weiss et al, 1981).…”

Shuttle interference effects in the rat depend upon activity during prior shock: A replication

“…As a first step toward validation of this possibility , it seems desirable to replicate the procedures of Anderson et al (1979) with rats in an effort to show that the previous fmdings were not the spurious consequence of sampling error. Accordingly, in the present study , the same procedures were employed as in Anderson et al (1979, Experiment 1) except that only 3, rather than 8, days of escape/avoidance testing were used.…”

“…Thus, it seems likely that the inherent movement-producing properties of the shock stimuli employed by Anderson et al and Maier were not the same. And unfortunately, as noted below, the common purpose of these studies may not have been equally served by their respective temporal forms of shock.In essence, both the Anderson et al (1979) and Thanks are extended to J . …”