The Discriminative Control of Free‐operant Avoidance Despite Exposure to Shock During the Stimulus Correlated With Nonreinfo R Cement

Bersh, Philip J.; Lambert, Joseph V.

doi:10.1901/jeab.1975.23-111

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…This observation is in agreement with prior reports of discriminative control in multiple VI-VT schedules (e.g., Bersh & Lambert, 1975;Boakes, 1973;Huff, Sherman, & Cohn, 1975;Lattal & Maxey, 1971;Weisman & Ramsden, 1973). It suggests that the development of a strong S-O association is not essential to the operation of a discriminative stimulus.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning

Colwill

Rescorla

1990

Animal Learning & Behavior

124

127

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In three experiments using rats, we examined the role of a discriminative stimulus (8) in governing the relation between a response (R) and an outcome (0) in an appetitive instrumental learning paradigm. In each experiment, we attempted to distinguish between a simple 8-0 association and a hierarchical relation in which 8 is associated with the R-O association. We used three variations on discriminative training procedures and three different assessment techniques for revealing the hierarchical structure. In Experiment 1, we employed a training procedure in which 8 signaled a change in the R-O relation but no change in the likelihood of O. Although such an arrangement should not produce an excitatory 8-0 association, it nevertheless generated an 8 that controlled responding and transferred that control to other responses. In Experiment 2, we used a discrimination procedure in which two Ss each had the same two Rs and Os occur in their presence but each 8 signaled that a different R-O combination would be in effect. This design provided the opportunity for equivalent pairwise associations among 8, R, and 0 but unique hierarchical relations. The subjects learned the hierarchical structure, as revealed by the specific depressive effect of a subsequent lithium-chloride-induced devaluation of 0 on responding only in the presence of the 8 in which that response had led to that outcome. In Experiment 3, one 8 signaled two different R-O outcomes. Then, two new stimuli were presented with the original 8; the R-O relations were retained in the presence of one of the added stimuli but were rearranged in the presence of the other. The added 8 came to control less responding when it was redundant with respect to the R-O relations than when it was informative. Although all of the results were of modest size and each has an alternative interpretation, together they provide converging evidence for the hierarchical role of 8 in controlling an R-O association.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning

Colwill

Rescorla

1990

Animal Learning & Behavior

124

127

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“…This occurred despite the fact that they received all scheduled shocks and that the low-intensity shock was aversive in its own right. Shock of this intensity level (.75 mAl has often been used to develop and maintain escape and avoidance behavior (e.g., Bersh & Lambert, 1975).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partial control and learned helplessness in rats: Control over shock intensity prevents interference with subsequent escape

Alloy

Bersh

1979

Animal Learning & Behavior

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The effeet upon subsequent eseape aequisition of eontrol over shock intensity in the absence of eontrol over other shock eharaeteristies was examined. Pretreatment involved random shocks of 1.6 and .75 mA at a density of about 10/min. The experimental group eould avoid the higher shock intensity if they leverpressed at least onee every 15 sec. Yoked and noshock rats eompleted the triadie design. Experimental and yoked animals reeeived all seheduled shocks. Triads were later tested for FR 2 shuttlebox eseape at either the .75 mA (low) or 1.6 mA (high) intensity. During testing, avoidanee rats performed as weIl as noshock rats at the low intensity and eseaped even more rapidly at the high intensity. Yoked rats showed interferenee at both intensities, with interferenee very marked, including many failures to escape, at the low intensity. These findings indieate that eontrol over shock intensity, by itself, is sufficient to prevent learned helplessness and suggest that eontrol over any salient eharaeteristie of shock may be suffieient for immunization. 157Prior exposure of organisms to inescapable and unavoidable aversive events leads to subsequent interference with the acquisition of escape/avoidance behavior. Such interference, referred to as "learned helplessness" (Maier, Seligman, & Solomon, 1969; Seligman, Maier, & Solomon, 1971), has been demonstrated in many organisms across a wide variety of situations (see Maier & Seligman, 1976). According to Maier and Seligman (1976), learned helplessness requires that an organism perceive that reinforcers are uncontrollable, i.e., that their occurrence is independent of behavior. Learning that reinforcers are response-independent is postulated to result in the expectation that this will hold true in the future. In turn, it is this expectation which is the basis for the response initiation, associative, and emotional deficits which characterize the subsequent behavior of organisms exposed to uncontrollable events.Uncontrollability, the primary condition for the development of learned helplessness, has been formally defined as the equal probability of reinforcement given the presence vs. the absence of any response (Maier & Seligman, 1976). In aversive helplessness experiments, uncontrollability, in practice, has meant that subjects have had no influence on any characteristic of the reinforcer, including its onset or offset, Under Seligman & Maier, 1967). Alternatively, other subjects in these experiments could terminate the aversive stimulus, thus controlling its duration and reducing its intensity to zero. Such control has been found to prevent subsequent interference.The present experiment was designed to determine how control over shock intensity, in the absence of control over shock occurrence or any other characteristic of shock, will affect later acquisition of escape behavior. Bersh and Alloy (1978) have recently found that animals will learn to avoid on the basis of a reduction in shock intensity to a lower, though still aversive, value with no influence of re...

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“…This is not the place for detailed protocols, but an appropriate experimental preparation might include schedules in which aversive stimuli were avoidable during one component and unavoidable during the other (as in Bersh & Lambert, 1975), with appropriate procedures for yoking shock densities (e.g., Hineline, 1970). By analogy with corresponding contingencies involving reinforcement and extinction, would observing responses be maintained if they produced only the avoidance stimulus but not if they produced only the stimulus during which aversive events were unavoidable?…”

Section: Three Wishes For Jeab At One Hundredmentioning

confidence: 99%

THE JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR AT FIFTY AND ONE HUNDRED

Catania

2008

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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The experimental content areas represented in JEAB in its first volume (1958) and 50 years later in Volume 87 are in many ways similar with regard to research on schedules of reinforcement, research with human subjects, and several other topics. Experimental analysis has not been displaced by quantitative analysis. Much less research on aversive control has been published in recent than in earlier years. Wishes for progress in the next 50 years include experiments on verbal behavior, the sources of novel behavior, and observing responses based on stimuli correlated with escape or avoidance.

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The Discriminative Control of Free‐operant Avoidance Despite Exposure to Shock During the Stimulus Correlated With Nonreinfo R Cement

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning

Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning

Partial control and learned helplessness in rats: Control over shock intensity prevents interference with subsequent escape

THE JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR AT FIFTY AND ONE HUNDRED

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