Olfactory Stimuli and the "Pseudo-Extinction" Effect

Wasserman, Edward A.; Jensen, Donald D.

doi:10.1126/science.166.3910.1307

Cited by 44 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…A number of studies have demonstrated that odor can function as a cue for rats in spontaneous alternation (Douglas, 1966), maze learning (Means, Hardy, Gabriel, & Uphold, 1971;Wasserman & Jensen, 1969) and other types of tasks (Slotnick, 1974). In all of the above experiments, however, the salience of the odor was markedly increased either by combining odors from many rats all tested under the same condition or by having all odors except the stimulus odor removed or suppressed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory in rats.

Olton¹,

Samuelson²

1976

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

1,457

965

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Rats were tested on an eight-arm maze in a paradigm of sampling with replacement from a known set of items until the entire set was sampled. The first three experiments demonstrated that the animals performed efficiently, choosing an average of more than seven different arms within the first eight choices, and did not utilize intramaze cues or consistent chains of responses in solving the task. The second three experiments examined some characteristics of the rats' memory storage. There was a small but reliable recency effect with the likelihood of a repetition error increasing with the number of choices since the initial instance. This performance decrement was due to interference from choices rather than just to the passage of time. No evidence was found for a primary effect. The data also suggest that there was no tendency to generalize among spatially adjacent arms. The results are discussed in terms of the memory processes involved in this task and human serial learning.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory in rats.

Olton¹,

Samuelson²

1976

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

1,457

965

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“…Ludvigson and others have postulated that this characteristic behavior pattern is determined by the discrimination of an odor associated with nonreward trials and covaries with an emotional response of frustration resulting from the absence of reward in an expected reward condition (CoUerain & Ludvigson, 1977;Howard & McHose, 1974;Pratt & Ludvigson, 1970;Wasserman & Jensen, 1969). Collerain and Ludvigson (1972) also found that this "nonreward" odor was avoided or escaped from by animals in a T -maze.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitral cell responses to the odors of reward and nonreward

Voorhees

Remley

1981

Psychobiology

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The purpose of this investigation was to determine if there were specific odor components in the goalbox of a straight alleyway following reward and nonreward trials. Behavioral research has convincingly demonstrated that, unless the goal box is cleaned between animals, a pattern of slow running on nonreward trials and fast running on reward trials soon develops. It has been proposed that the rat emits an odor in the goalbox following nonreward which allows following conspecifics to predict the upcoming goal event before reaching the goalbox. Behavioral research has been unable to determine if there are specific odors associated with reward and nonreward, or if there is only one odor of varying concentration, or if only one odor is present and the cue for the other condition is merely the absence of that odor. The results of this study strongly suggest that there are specific odors in the goalbox as a result of nonreward and reward. They further suggest that these "reward" and "nonreward" odors are different from the odors of food and urine, and that the "reward" and "nonreward" odors, although different, may possibly be similar in chemical structure.

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“…Not only are these findings interesting with regard to their contribution to the general field of animal behavior, but are particularly important in view of the rat's extensive use in studies of learning and motivation, where such odor effects could confound experimentally manipulated variables. For example, the withholding of reinforcement from a rat that had been trained to run a straight alley produces an odor which results in an unconditioned decrement in the running speed of a subsequently tested animal (Wasserman and Jensen, 1969). The reinforcement and withholding of reinforcement from a predecessor have also been shown to be conditions producing odors which can serve as conditioned stimuli for discrimination using runways (Ludvigson and 1This research was done at…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Open-field responses of rats to odors from stressed and nonstressed predecessors

Stevens

Köster

1972

Behavioral Biology

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Male rats were observed on a clean table with extending runways. Paired comparisons were made with clean runways, those on which conspecifics had been stressed, and previously present but not stressed. The subjects stopped more frequently and for a longer duration on runways with predecessors than on clean ones. Stopping was more frequent on runways with stressed predecessors than with nonstressed predecessors. When runways from stressed predecessors were present, there was more frequent urination on the table than when those runways were not used, despite that in the former conditions the subjects spent considerably less time on the table than on the runways.Recent work has demonstrated that odors from surfaces previously occupied by a conspecific have important effects in the behavior of rats. Not only are these findings interesting with regard to their contribution to the general field of animal behavior, but are particularly important in view of the rat's extensive use in studies of learning and motivation, where such odor effects could confound experimentally manipulated variables. For example, the withholding of reinforcement from a rat that had been trained to run a straight alley produces an odor which results in an unconditioned decrement in the running speed of a subsequently tested animal (Wasserman and Jensen, 1969). The reinforcement and withholding of reinforcement from a predecessor have also been shown to be conditions producing odors which can serve as conditioned stimuli for discrimination using runways (Ludvigson and 1This research was done at

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Olfactory Stimuli and the "Pseudo-Extinction" Effect

Cited by 44 publications

References 7 publications

Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory in rats.

Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory in rats.

Mitral cell responses to the odors of reward and nonreward

Open-field responses of rats to odors from stressed and nonstressed predecessors

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