Classical-classical transfer: Excitatory associations between “competing” motivational stimuli during classical conditioning of the rabbit

Abstract

A sensory preconditioning analogue was employed to separate signaling effects from motivational effects observed in appetitive-to-aversive transfer of training. Rabbits received appetitive conditioning (tone-water pairings) of the jaw-movement response, followed by aversive conditioning of the nictitating membrane response, during which water delivery served as the CS for paraorbital shock. When the tone was subsequently presented, only subjects exposed to both sets of pairings demonstrated conditioned jaw movement and nictitating membrane responses. The occurrence of both responses to the tone is inconsistent with the action of reciprocal inhibition between motivational states. The results are interpreted in terms of multiple mediators for transferof-training paradigms.Many influential theories of instrumental behavior as-. sume that there exist aversive and appetitive motivational states in the central nervous system which act reciprocally to inhibit one another (e.g., Konorski, 1967; Rescorla & Solomon, 1967). Each motivational state is thought to be activated directly by an unconditioned stimulus (US) or indirectly by a conditioned stimulus (CS) that has been paired with the US. The most conclusive evidence for competing motivational states (see Dickinson & Pearce, 1977) comes from classical-classical transfer paradigms in which a CS is initially paired with a US from one motivational state and subsequently paired with a US from the other motivational state (Bromage & Scavio, 1978;Krank, 1985; Scavio, 1974Scavio, , 1975Scavio & Gormezano, 1980). For example, Scavio (1974Scavio ( , 1975 has shown that conditioning the rabbit's nictitating membrane response to a tone CS by pairing the CS with a shock US will retard the development of a jaw-movement response to that CS when it is subsequently paired with an oral injection of a water US. Since Scavio also showed that nictitating membrane and jaw-movement conditioned responses (CRs) were statistically independent, the retarded acquisition of the jaw-movement conditioned response could not be attributed to peripheral incompatibility of responses. Hence, Scavio's results support a theory in which central motivational states inhibit one another.In contrast, when USs from opposing motivational states are directly paired with one another, conditioning appears to occur rapidly (Asratyan, 1965(Asratyan, , 1980Beritoff, 1965;. Dearing & Dickinson, 1979;Gormezano & Tait, 1976; This research was supported by Grant A0312 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to R. W. Tait. Requests for reprints should be addressed to R. W. Tait, Psychology Department, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2. Tait, 1974). For example, Tait (1974) showed that when a water US is followed by a paraorbital shock US, the water becomes an effective CS for the aversively motivated nictitating membrane response. When the temporal order of the stimuli was reversed in a separate group of rabbits, forward conditioning of the appetitively motivated ja...

Concurrent development of excitatory and inhibitory associations during backward conditioning

“…Acquired motivational effects are implicated by the retarded acquisition observed with the hedonically opposing US (e.g., Scavio, 1974). Acquired cuing effects are implicated by: (1) the savings observed during the reacquisition of the original CR using the initial US (Bromage & Scavio, 1978); (2) the ability of a US to function as a CS when directly paired with a hedonically opposite US (see Gormezano & Tait, 1976); and (3) the simultaneous occurrence of hedonically opposite responses to a CS following an acquisition sequence in which the CS is paired with a US, which is subsequently paired with a hedonically opposite US (Tait, Quesnel, & Ten Have, 1986). Furthermore, it has been asserted (e.g., Soltysik, 1971) that the two associative consequences may be differentially sensitive to the effects of classical conditioning variables.…”

Classical Conditioning and Modification of the Rabbit's (Oryctolagus Cuniculus) Unconditioned Nictitating Membrane Response

“…Given the suggestion that CRM is the generalization of a CR , and the observations of a CR-UR-like topography of CRM ( Figure 1), an experiment was conducted in which the topography of the CR was deliberately manipulated (Schreurs et al, 2000). If CRM were a generalized CR, it suggests that a response could be generalized to a US (Pavlov, 1927;Scavio & Gormezano, 1980;Tait, Quesnel, & Ten Haven, 1986) and not just to other CSs of the same modality (Mackintosh, 1974;Moore, 1972). This is a particularly interesting suggestion because a large body of cross-modal transfer data indicates quite clearly that a rabbit nictitating membrane CR does not transfer (generalize) across CS modalities (Kehoe, Morrow, & Holt, 1984;LeDoux, 2000;Schreurs & Kehoe, 1987 Schreurs, Shi, Pineda, and Buck (2000), in the public domain.…”

US-US conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response: Emergence of a conditioned response without alpha conditioning

“…Specifieally, by monitoring the alpha response during CS-US pairings, it would be possible to detect any pairing-specifie ehanges in the response. Moreover, with a suffieiently long CS-US interval, it would be possible US- US CONDITIONING 313 to detect responses other than the alpha response that might occur before the USo Experiments in whieh two USs are paired have traditionally been employed to examine the nature of associations (Asratyan, 1965;Gormezano & Tait, 1976;Pavlov, 1927) and to address questions about motivational states (Dearing & Dickinson, 1979;Seavio, 1974;Seavio & Gormezano, 1980;Tait et al, 1986). In the former case, US-US conditioning experiments have been used to ascertain whether associations are bidirectional-that is, formed both between a CS and aUS and between the US and the CS (Asratyan, 1965;Gormezano & Tait, 1976).…”

“…In the former case, US-US conditioning experiments have been used to ascertain whether associations are bidirectional-that is, formed both between a CS and aUS and between the US and the CS (Asratyan, 1965;Gormezano & Tait, 1976). In the latter ease, USs of opposing motivational states (e.g., food and shock) have been paired together and CRs resembling responses to the second US have appeared relatively quickly to the first US (Gormezano & Tait, 1976;Tait et al, 1986). In contrast, a tone CS previously paired with a US (e.g., shock) thus produeing one motivational state, has been shown to take a relatively long time to become associated with a US (e.g., food or water) producing another motivational state .…”

“…In contrast, a tone CS previously paired with a US (e.g., shock) thus produeing one motivational state, has been shown to take a relatively long time to become associated with a US (e.g., food or water) producing another motivational state . Tait et al (1986) have argued that the results ofthese two experiments reflect a differenee in the "cuing" and "motivational" funetions of the CS in eaeh ease (Dear- ing & Dickinson, 1979). In the present study, the CS would be expeeted to funetion as a eue with the same motivational sign as the US.…”