Helson's Residual Factor versus Innate S-R Relations

Early vibratory experience and the question of innate reinforcement value of vibration and other stimuli: A limitation on the discrepancy (burnt soup) principle in motivation.

“…The concept is dissonant with our past theoretical prejudices. Never-theless, the evidence from our present experiment and that from the experiments of Warren and Pfaffmann (1958) and of Meier et al (1960) indicate that negative reinforcement value must be a genuine aspect of various kinds of receptor inputs. Evidence from several other sources also supports the hypothesis that various receptor inputs may have innately either positive or negative reinforcement values.…”

“…Rats reared with vibration, from before birth to 56 days of age, did press a bar to stop vibration less often than did controls, but they did not, as expected from Hebb's formulation of the discrepancy principle, press a bar more often than did controls to start vibration. This finding, coupled with a similar finding for a bitter substance by Warren and Pfaffmann (1958), and for flashing illumination by Meier et al (1960), does not deny the discrepancy principle. Since merely becoming accustomed to stimulation which is innately negative in reinforcement or hedonic value does not alone render it positive in reinforcement value, however, these experiments suggest that some stimuli have innate reinforcement value which places limits upon the discrepancy principle beyond those already recognized in actual noxiousness or painfulness.…”

The effect of early experience upon the formaton of environmental preferences in rats.

“…Although overall differences between vibrated and control groups were not reliable, the finding that animals vibrated at the 1-21 day age level made significantly more entries into the vibrated goal box than controls is consistent with the results of other studies (Hunt & Quay, 1961;Meier et al, 1960;Warren & Pfaffmann, 1958). Animals continue to prefer conditions common totheir natural habitats but are less inclined to avoid unique stimulation when exposed to such stimulation early in life.…”

Explanation of rewards that do not reduce tissue needs.

“…Due to ambiguity in Glanzer's definition of variation, the assumptions of an increase or of a decrease in experienced variation are sometimes equally plausible. For example, studies by Hunt and Quay (1961) and Meier, Foshee, Wittrig, Peeler, and Huff (1960) employed two levels of stimulus heterogeneity during rearing, being followed when the animals were older by a test situation in which responding served to change stimulation from one of the levels of heterogeneity to the other. In the test situation, it is unclear for the subjects reared with the stimulus of greater heterogeneity whether the change from experiencing the heterogeneous but thoroughly familiar stimulus to experiencing the homogeneous but unfamiliar stimulus should be assumed to decrease or to increase the rate of experienced variation.…”