The control of keypecks during automaintenance by prekeypeck omission training

Lucas, Gary A.

doi:10.3758/bf03209095

Cited by 16 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Thus, lever nosing might not in a strict sense be a new response but a weakened version of the approach-nose-and-paw sequence. This interpretation would probably be consistent with the views of Ziriax and Silberberg (1978) Lucas, 1975). If this is the case, the present study indicates that this reduction in response strength results not from a weakening of Pavlovian correlations, but only from direct experience of the omission contingency.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Autoshaping in the Rat: Effects of Omission on the Form of the Response

Oakley

Cleland

1981

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of an omission contingency on behavior related to and characterizing autoshaped lever contacts in the rat. In Experiment I an omission contingency imposed on autoshaped lever contacts forceful enough to produce a press (.078N) resulted in a significant decrease in lever presses, but had no effect on frequency of lever touches (contacts of insufficient force to produce a press) or rate of food tray entry during lever presentation. In contrast, rats which received a similar number of lever-food pairings, but whose behavior had no programmed consequences (yoked control subjects), showed an increase in lever press rate, a significant decrease in rate of food tray entry, and no change in rate of lever-touches. In Experiment II, the effect of a similar omission contingency on the topography of lever contact responses was investigated. Prior to omission training subjects contacted the lever primarily by pawing it.Following omission training this behavior was suppressed, with a subsequent increase in lever contacts characterized as nosing. Yoked control subjects showed no significant changes in lever contact topography. The results indicate that (1) an omission contingency does not simply eliminate wholesale those topographies which incur the contingency but produces subtle adaptive changes in lever contact topography; and (2) the nature of the autoshaped response in the rat does not appear to be rigid enough to depend solely upon the nature of the unconditioned stimulus or the conditioned stimulus, but can also be determined by the relationships existing between the animal's behavior and these stimuli.Key words: autoshaping, sign tracking, goal tracking, omission contingency, response topography, yoked control, ratsIn one of the first demonstrations of the phenomenon known as autoshaping, Brown and Jenkins (1968) showed that pigeons will rapidly learn to peck an illuminated key if that key is reliably followed by food. This demonstration was important primarily because it showed that an integrated skeletal response could be developed by means of what was ostensibly a classical conditioning procedure. In the simple autoshaping paradigm a localizable stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, CS) is presented to the subject at varying intervals, with each presentation of the CS being immediately followed by food delivery (the unconditioned stimulus, UCS).

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Autoshaping in the Rat: Effects of Omission on the Form of the Response

Oakley

Cleland

1981

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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“…For most pigeons, there was substantial variability in the probability of a response from one block to the next. (Lucas, 1975;Myerson, 1974). The remaining pigeons showed no obvious effect of ITI.…”

Section: Unconditional Probabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Complex dynamic processes in sign tracking with an omission contingency (negative automaintenance).

Killeen¹

2003

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

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Hungry pigeons received food periodically, signaled by the onset of a keylight. Key pecks aborted the feeding. Subjects responded for thousands of trials, despite the contingent nonreinforcement, with varying probability as the intertrial interval was varied. Hazard functions showed the dominant tendency to be perseveration in responding and not responding. Once perseveration was accounted for, a linear operator model of associative conditioning further improved predictions. Response rates during trials were correlated with the prior probabilities of a response. Rescaled range analyses showed that the behavioral trajectories were a kind of fractional Brownian motion.

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“…In many cases (and this sometimes happens in omission procedures even without explicit training) the birds adapt by pecking to one side of the key -a selection for place that allows the predisposed response to occur without preventing food (cf. Barrera, 1974;Lucas, 1975;Peden, Browne & Hearst, 1977;Wessells, 1974). …”

Section: Voluntary and Involuntary Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Behavior and Learning

Staddon

2016

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Every day at about 4:30, Jazz, a Hungarian Vizsla dog, leaps up on the sofa and looks out for his owner who always comes home at 5:00. He doesn't need an internal clock because he has an acute sense of smell that allows him to measure how long his master has been absent. Explaining complex behavior in simple ways, this book is a fascinating exploration of the evolution, development and processes of learning in animals. Now in its second edition, there is increased emphasis on development, evolution and dynamics; new accounts of taxic orientation, reflex induction, habituation and operant learning in organisms; more discussion of spatial learning and the processes underlying it; expanded chapters on choice and completely new chapters on molar laws, classical conditioning theories and comparative cognition. J. E. R. Staddon provides a definitive summary of contemporary theoretical understanding suitable for graduates and advanced undergraduates.

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The control of keypecks during automaintenance by prekeypeck omission training

Cited by 16 publications

References 14 publications

Autoshaping in the Rat: Effects of Omission on the Form of the Response

Autoshaping in the Rat: Effects of Omission on the Form of the Response

Complex dynamic processes in sign tracking with an omission contingency (negative automaintenance).

Adaptive Behavior and Learning

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