Retention of aversively motivated responses in rats.

Abstract

Thirteen groups of rats were given two types of retention tests 0, 1, 6, or 24 hr. following exposure to electric shock (preshock). When amount of time spent in situations either identical to or different from the preshock apparatus was measured, performance was determined by the stimuli paired with preshock at short retention intervals, and by the location in which the rat was placed at the beginning of testing at long retention intervals. In a one-way avoidance situation, performance was determined by the stimuli paired with preshock at both short and long retention intervals. Although the effects of preshock as assessed by the two tests seemed different at long retention intervals, both sets of results were interpreted in terms of the flattening of generalization gradients over time.

The Kamin effect as a function of time of training and associative-nonassociative processes

“…In addition to the expected finding of a Kamin effect for the AA "morning" groups, the observation of such an effect in the PNC "morning" groups confirms those reported in previous investigations of retention following experience with "noncontingent" shock (e.g., de Toledo & Black, 1970). Similarly, in agreement with the present TNC findings, de Toledo and Black reported a failure to observe a Kamin effect in groups preshocked in one apparatus and tested for avoidance responding in another.…”

Time-dependent variations in aversively motivated behaviors: Nonassociative effects of cholinergic and catecholaminergic activity.

“…Of prime importance here is the finding that this difference was observed regardless of the testretest interval. Moreover, the data presented by de Toledo and Black (1970) and Steranka and Barrett (1973) also indicated that performance at the intermediate interval was inferior to that observed in naive animals. If memory could not be retrieved at the intermediate interval, as suggested by Klein andSpear (1970a, 1970b), then it should not have mattered whether animals were required to run away or toward the preshock stimuli, and consequently both groups should have performed equally poorly at the intermediate interval.…”

“…Paradoxically, employing a somewhat similar type of test situation, several investigators (e.g., Anisman & Waller, 1971;Barrett, Leith, & Ray, 1971b;Bauer, 1973;de Toledo & Black, 1970;Steranka & Barrett, 1973) have observed substantially different results. These investigators shocked animals in a compartment of a particular color, and subsequently had independent groups of rats run either toward or away from the preshock compartment at one of various intervals.…”

Hippocampal function in avoidance learning and punishment.

“…Kamin, 1963;McAllister & McAllister, 1971), and many of the controls that are necessary to interpret the data are not available in research on animals with hippocampal lesions. For example, de Toledo and Black (1970) have shown that normal rats do not run when put in the dangerous compartment of a one-way shuttle box 24 hours after acquisition, under certain circumstances, because of generalized fear. Control groups that permit one to decide whether failure to respond resulted from a retention loss or such fear generalization are usually unavailable,.…”