Developmental psychobiology and behaviour theory: Reciprocating influences.

Abstract

This paper addresses the topic of levels of functioning in ontogeny in the context of a large body of normative data, demonstrating the ages of first appearance in infancy of a number of reward-schedule effects, all of which have been observed in adult rats and some in other species including humans. An introductory section discusses levels of functioning in animals and humans, with particular reference in the latter case to neuropsychological theories of memory function. This is followed by a summary presentation of the normative developmental data on reward-schedule effects; earlier work implicating the hippocampal formation in some of these effects, and in general in reactions to discrepancy; and our work on the effects of hippocampal lesions and of exposure to alcohol in utero on single-alternation patterning and on the partial reinforcement extinction effect. These latter results suggest a modification of Frustration Theory, which gains some support from work that relates differential hippocampal granule-cell genesis to exposure to a number of reward-schedule effects in infancy.Daniel Berlyne was a rich academic blend of Manchester Grammar School, Cambridge University, and Yale, of Pavlov, Hull, Piaget, and Hebb, mixed with everything that was new and exciting in psychology in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet he was a unique intellect. He was one of the first to understand the meaning and *This paper is based on, and is an extension of, the Daniel E. Berlyne Lecture presented at the University of Toronto on March 5, 1986. Portions of this paper were included in, and portions were taken from, the I. E.

The CS− effect in simple conditioning and stimulus selection during development

“…Yet the similarities are intriguing with respect to the ontogenetic issue of the presence as opposed to the absence of a functional hippocampus (for a systematic set of other similarities, see Amsel, 1986;Amsel & Stanton, 1980). The physiological basis of the ontogeny of learning and stimulus selection often enters into considerations of certain apparently invariant dispositions of animals for associating particular conditioned stimuli (CS) with particular unconditioned stimuli (US).…”

Précis ofFrustration Theory: An Analysis of Dispositional Learning and Memory

“…This conceptualization was later extended to cover the partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE), discrimination learning, and a number of other rewardschedule phenomena (Amsel, 1951(Amsel, , 1958(Amsel, , 1962(Amsel, , 1967(Amsel, , 1986Spence, 1960;Wilson, Weiss, & Arosel, 1955). Mine was an extension of the conditioning model approach to include a theory of frustration.…”

“…Here are some examples: At II days of age, rat pups can learn to discriminate the presence or absence of reward on the basis of a singlealternating pattern~approaching a goalbox rapidly on odd-numbered, rewarded trials and greatly suppressing Successive acquisition and extinction (Amsel, Burdette, & Letz, 1976) ,,; I0 days Single patterned alternation (PA) (Stanton, Dailey, & Amsel, 1980) ,,;11 days Partial reinforcement extinction (PREE) (Chen & Amsel, 1980a, 1980cLetz, Burdette, Gregg, Kittrell, & Amsel, 1978) 12-14 days Variable magnitude of reinforcement extinction (VMREE) 16-18 days Partial delay of reinforcement extinction (PDREE) 16-18 days Partial reinforcement acquisition (PRAE) (Chen, Gross, Stanton, & Amsel, 1980) 18-20 days Magnitude of reinforcement extinction (MREE) (Burdette, Brake, Chen, & Amsel, 1976;Chen, Gross, & Amse1, 1981) 20-21 days Successive negative contrast (SNC) 25-26 days Slow responding (DNC) (Chen, Gross, Stanton, & Amsel, 1981) ,,;63 days From "Developmental Psychobiology and Behavior Theory: Reciprocating Influences," by A. Amsel, 1986, Canadian Journal ofPsychology, 40, p. 315. Copyright 1986 In adult rats, some of these behavioral, "emotional" reinforcement-schedule effects and several others have been shown to depend on the integrity of portions of the limbic system and adjacent cortical areas, particularly the hippocampal formation with its connections to the septum and entorhinal cortex.…”

Abram Amsel (1922–2006) in memoriam

“…(Amsel, 1986;Amsel & Stanton, 1980) Amsel's willingness to adopt a neurobiological perspective in the 1970s was a challenge for someone with such established credentials in the behavioral science community. In a letter written in the mid-1970s, he expressed his feelings about the change in research focus: I can sympathize with the difficulties of getting into a new field and more or less giving up an area of expertise.…”