Goal events as discriminative stimuli over extended intertrial intervals.

Pschirrer, Martin

doi:10.1037/h0033701

Cited by 20 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance confirmed that rate of pecking on water-rewarded trials was greater than that on food-rewarded trials The difference in rate of pecking on the two types of trials provides additional evidence that keypecking was controlled by the alternating reward schedule, and is consistent with previous studies that have demonstrated control of quantitative aspects of responding by schedules of reward alternation (e.g., Pschirrer, 1972).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 77%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Control of pigeons’ keypecking topography by a schedule of alternating food and water reward

Spetch

Wilkie

Skelton

1981

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Food-and water-deprived pigeons keypecked for food or water reinforcement on alternate trials. Under one condition, explicit stimuli on the key provided information about the trial outcome; under another condition, only the alternation schedule provided this information. Latency and/or response rate differences between food-and water-rewarded trials emerged during both conditions. Response topography also differed on food-and water-rewarded trials. These differences, as revealed by duration and force measurements of the keypeck and by human ratings of the pecking responses as being water-or food-related, were anticipatory in nature. These results not only extend previous work on reward alternation and rewardspecific response topographies, but also have implications for theories of animal memory. In particular, these results are amenable to memory models that assume that an animal "codes" information that later must be recalled.Reward alternation studies have provided good evidence that animals can remember the reward outcome of a trial and use this information as a discriminative stimulus. Capaldi and Stanley (1963), for example, exposed rats to alternating rewarded and nonrewarded runway trials, and observed the development of an appropriate alternation in running speedthe rats ran faster on rewarded trials than on nonrewarded trials. This effect occurred even when the trials were separated by 24 h (Capaldi & Spivey, 1964).Comparable results have been found for the barpress response. Rats barpressing during alternating rewarded and nonrewarded trials developed longer latencies to respond on nonrewarded trials (Gonzalez, Bainbridge, & Bitterman, 1966;Wall & Goodrich, 1964).Apparently rats also can remember and use information about the type of reward as a discriminative stimulus. Pschirrer (1972) exposed rats to a sequence of three runway trial outcomes: either milk, pellets, and nonreward, or pellets, milk, and nonreward. Trials were separated by a 15-min intertrial interval (ITI). The rats developed equally fast running speeds on milk-and pellet-rewarded trials, and slower speeds on nonrewarded trials. Pschirrer concluded that the slower running speeds on nonrewarded trials developed because one kind of reward served as a signal of reward on the following trial and the other kind as a signal of nonreward. This interpretation received support from his second experiment, in which type of reward (milk or pellets) served as a discriminative stimulus for a right-left discrimination. Here, trials were separated by 3 min and the reward for a correct arm choice (milk or pellets) was determined randomly. Rats successfully learned to choose between a left or right alley on the basis of the type of reward received on the preceding trial.In these and other reward alternation studies, the usual behavioral measure of discrimination has been speed of running in an alley or latency to barpress. One measure that has not been studied is response topography.It has been demonstrated recently that the topography of an animal's res...

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Pschirrer (1972) exposed rats to a sequence of three runway trial outcomes: either milk, pellets, and nonreward, or pellets, milk, and nonreward. Trials were separated by a 15-min intertrial interval (ITI).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Control of pigeons’ keypecking topography by a schedule of alternating food and water reward

Spetch

Wilkie

Skelton

1981

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Other data also suggest that the stimuli produced by H and HT are more similar than the stimuli produced by large and small reward. For example, while drive discrimination between hunger and thirst (presumably more similar than H and HT) is very difficult for the rat (e.g., Arnsel, 1949;Bailey, 1955;Levine, 1953), discrimination between reward related cues is relatively easy for the rat (e.g., Bloom, Williams, & Metze, 1973;Pschirrer, 1972;Wolach, Sayeed, & Foster, 1972). Although procedures in these studies differed, the results are consistent with the interpretation offered here.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of strong irrelevant thirst on food-rewarded instrumental performance

Capaldi

Hovancik

Lamb

1975

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

.In Experiment I, rats received one food rewarded trial per day in a runway. One group received all its trials under hunger (Group H); the second group received a random half of its trials under hunger and the other half of its trials under hunger plus thirst (Group H·HT). Group H·HT ultimately ran slower on HT trials than on H trials. In Experiment II, the effects of shifting from H to-HT-and vice versa were examined in a five-phase design. In general, rats run under H ran faster than rats run under HT, and shifts from H to HT produced rapid decreases in speed, while shifts from HT to H produced extremely slow increases in speed. The results of both experiments were interpreted as indicating that the reward value of food is greater under H than under HT and that the manipulation H vs. HT may be viewed as theoretically similar to manipulation of reward magnitude.It has been shown that rats deprived of both food and water (hunger plus thirst, HT) eat less when food alone is given and are inferior in food-rewarded instrumental performance to rats deprived only of food (hunger, H) (e.g., Bolles & Morlock, 1960;Kendler & Law, 1950;Levine, 1956; Verplanck & Hayes, 1953), at least when thirst is strong (22 h deprivation or more). These results may be interpreted as indicating that the reward value of food is less under HT than under H. The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to determine if the effects on performance of manipulating H vs, HT are similar to the effects of manipulating reward magnitude.If the effects on performance of these two manipulations are similar, it would then seem feasible to ask whether or not these similar effects are produced through the same mechanisms.Although the results of previous studies investigating instrumental performance as a function of H vs. HT are compatible with the interpretation that the reward value of food is less under HT than under H, they are also compatible with other interpretations for two reasons. First, previous studies measuring instrumental performance as a function of H vs. HT have employed more than one trial a day. Accordingly, in previous studies, it is possible that HT rats were inferior to H rats because of an aftereffect of having consumed food on Trial I, an aftereffect (e.g., dry mouth) which limited their subsequent food consumption and thus produced slow running. This hypothesis is supported by Bolles and Morlock's (I960) finding that animals run to food under H on some days and under H plus strong T on other days ran equally rapidly under Hand HT on Trial 1 of the day, but ran more slowly under HT than under H on This research was supported in part by Grant MH 23446-01 to the fust author from the National Institute of Mental Health. Experiment II is based in part on a thesis by the third author under the direction of the fust author submitted to the graduate school of Purdue University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the master's degree. Reprints may be obtained from Elizabeth D. Capaldi, Department of Psychological Sciences...

show abstract

“…The existence of situational relevance was inferred from the ability of rats to learn discriminations based upon the reward outcome of the preceding trial (Capaldi, 1971;Pschirrer, 1972) or the type of response emitted on the preceding trial (Petrinovich & Bolles, 1957). However, an alternative explanation is that such cues are very salient for rats.…”

Section: Samrevuskymentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-delay learning in rats: A black-white discrimination

Revusky

1974

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Goal events as discriminative stimuli over extended intertrial intervals.

Cited by 20 publications

References 8 publications

Control of pigeons’ keypecking topography by a schedule of alternating food and water reward

Control of pigeons’ keypecking topography by a schedule of alternating food and water reward

The effects of strong irrelevant thirst on food-rewarded instrumental performance

Long-delay learning in rats: A black-white discrimination

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About