Second-order sexual conditioning in male Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica)

Abstract

Second-order conditioning of social approach to a female conspecific in male Japanese quail was investigated in four experiments. Subjects that received paired first-and second-order trials acquired second-order conditioning in both Experiments 1 and 2. In contrast, subjects that received paired first-order but unpaired second-order trials, and subjects that received unpaired first-order but paired second-order trials, did not acquire second-order conditioning. In Experiment 3, subjects for whom the first-order conditioned stimulus was presented in extinction showed second-order conditioning comparable to that shown by subjects in a control group that did not receive the extinction procedure. In Experiment 4, subjects approached a second-order stimulus less when sexually satiated than when sexually deprived. These flndings suggest that second-order sexual conditioning in quail is mediated by an association of the second-order stimulus with a representation of the unconditioned stimulus.Second-order conditioning has been ofconsiderable historical interest because it putatively increases the range of situations in which Pavlovian conditioning may occur. First-order Pavlovian conditioning requires the pairing of a conditioned stimulus (CS) with an unconditioned stimulus (US), such as food, water, or shock, that is biologically important to the subject. This limits first-order conditioning to situations in which subjects encounter unconditioned stimuli. In contrast, in second-order conditioning a previously conditioned stimulus (CS 1) is used in the role of a US to produce conditioning to a new stimulus (CS2). Therefore, second-order conditioning can occur in situations that do not involve exposure to an unconditioned stimulus, provided that the subjects previously receive first-order conditioning.Most modem studies ofsecond-order conditioning have involved fear conditioning in rats (e.g., Rizley & Rescorla, 1972) or appetitive conditioning in rats and pigeons (e.g., Holland & Rescorla, 1975b;Rescorla, 1979). The present experiments were conducted to extend the study ofsecondorder conditioning to sexual behavior.Second-order sexual conditioning was previously demonstrated in rats by Zamble, Hadad, Mitchell, and Cutmore (1985), but they measured conditioning only indirectly by demonstrating shorter ejaculation latencies following exposure to the second-order stimulus. Sexual conditioning has been investigated more extensively in male Japanese quail (see Domjan, 1994, for a review). Studies with Japanese quail have confirmed that, as in rats, sexually conditioned stimuli can facilitate copulatory behavior (e.g., Domjan, Greene, & North, 1989). In addition, these experiments have identified circumstances in which first-order conditioned stimuli can also directly elicit various conditioned responses (e.g., Akins, Domjan, & Gutierrez, 1994).Male quail approach and remain near visible but physically inaccessible females (Domjan & Hall, 1986) and also come to approach and remain near visual stimuli that have been paired w...

What's Elementary About Associative Learning?

“…Control groups prove that both phases of training are necessary for the resultant CR to CSB (Rescorla 1973). Second-order conditioning has been found with numerous responses in many species, including proboscis extension in honeybees (Bitterman et al 1983), target striking in goldfish (Amiro & Bitterman 1980), sexual activity in quail (Crawford & Domjan 1995), and keypecking in chicks (Deich et al, in Wasserman 1981). Stronger responding to CSB has been reported when CSA was paired with larger USs than with smaller ones (O'Connell & Rashotte 1982) and when CSB was consistently followed by CSA than when it was inconsistently followed by CSA (Colwill & Rescorla 1985, Rashotte et al 1981.…”

Role of the basolateral amygdala and NMDA receptors in higher-order conditioned fear

“…Second-order conditioning is now well documented in a range of species and paradigms including fear conditioning in rats (McAllister and McAllister , 1964 ;Kamil , 1969a ;Rizley and Rescorla , 1972 ;Rescorla , 1973bRescorla , , 1982Marlin , 1983 ;Helmstetter and Fanselow , 1989 ;Cicala et al , 1990 ;Gewirtz and Davis , 1997 ;Nader and LeDoux , 1999 ;Paschall and Davis , 2002 ;Debiec et al , 2006 ;Parkes and Westbrook, 2010) and humans (Davey and Arulampalam , 1982 ;Wessa and Flor , 2007 ), causal learning in humans (Jara et al , 2006 ), appetitive conditioning in rats (Holland and Rescorla , 1975a,b ;Hatfi eld et al , 1996 ;Setlow et al , 2002a,b ;Winterbauer and Balleine , 2005 ), and goldfi sh (Amiro and Bitterman , 1980 ), taste aversion in rats (Archer and Sj ö den, 1982 ), conditioned analgesia in rats (Ross , 1986 ;Helmstetter and Fanselow , 1989 ), autoshaping in pigeons (Rashotte et al , 1977 ;Rescorla , 1979 ;Burt and Westbrook , 1980 ), eyeblink conditioning in rabbits (Kehoe et al , 1981 ), observational fear in monkeys (Cook and Mineka , 1987 ), conditioning of tentacle lowering in the snail (Loy et al, 2006) and sexual conditioning in male Japanese quail (Crawford and Domjan , 1995 ). Responses have been conditioned beyond the secondorder in fear paradigms (Finch and Culler , 1934 ;Brogden and Culler , 1935 ).…”

Learning with arbitrary versus ecological conditioned stimuli: Evidence from sexual conditioning

“…The experiment would have been even more convincing had we included a control for the second-order pairings. Such a control, which had been included in an earlier second-order conditioning study (Crawford & Domjan, 1995), provided no reason to expect that responding to the light CS2 reflected a nonassociative effect (see also Domjan et al, 1986).…”

“…These include acquisition, extinction, renewal, blocking, CS-US interval effects, trace conditioning,simple and conditionaldiscrimination learning, conditioned inhibition, context conditioning, US devaluation effects, observational conditioning, and second-order conditioning (Akins & Domjan, 1996;Burns & Domjan, 2000;Crawford & Domjan, 1995Domjan, Akins, & Vandergriff, 1992;Domjan, Greene, & North, 1989;Domjan et al, 1986;Domjan, O'Vary, & Greene, 1988;Gean, Matthews, Krause, & Domjan, 2004;Holloway & Domjan, 1993;Köksal & Domjan, 1998;Köksal, Domjan, & Weisman, 1994).…”