Two experiments are reported in which goldfish failed to show the inverse relation between resistance to extinction and amount of reward and failed also to show the depression effect under conditions analogous to those which most clearly produce these effects in rats.

No abstract

A first experiment compared the behavior of goldfish injected with puromycin immediately after each of a weekly series of brief discriminative training sessions in the shuttlebox to that of appropriate controls. Discrimination was not prevented, nor was escape from shock impaired, but probability of response to the conditioned stimuli, both positive and negative, was reduced substantially. These results suggest that puromycin interferes with the consolidation of conditioned fear. The null outcome of a second experiment, in which all training was given in a single long session instead of a series of short sessions, suggests (contrary to recent indications) that consolidation begins in the training session. The conditioned-fear hypothesis is supported by the results of a third experiment in which the animals were shocked upon entering a goalbox to which they had previously learned to swim for food; animals injected with puromycin, immediately after the shock, entered the goalbox more readily 1 week later than did appropriate controls.

iJ.~,,', thus cover-, approvmutcr. the nrst 37U rnsec of rhe ,mrlLal response' after stimulus onset The stimulus onset point in the records was checked by put (In~a photo-cell signai through the cortical response channel and recording it with the computer. The stimulus pcnods were checked and found to be' consistent.Each tape recording is analyzed four times by an average response computer (Mnernorron CAT or Fabri-Tek signal avcrager). The four analyses arc: (I) response to the right eye stimulus when the right eye is dominant. (~) response to the right eye stimulus when the left eye is dominant. (3) response to the left eye stimulus when the left eye is dominant. and (4, response to the left eye stimulus when the right eye is dominant.As the responses are averaged from the tape record of the simultaneous functioning of both eyes, the degree of control inherent in this procedure is great. If one eye is misaligned. the effective brightness of the stimulus to that eye is decreased. If this produces a smaller response when that eye is suppressing. it also produces a smaller response when the same eye is dominant. Hence the effects of misalignment or other stimulus artifacts are cancelled out and cannot account for the differences between dominant and suppressed evoked potentials from the same eye. Similarly, changes in attention or arousal over time arc not confounded with rivalry changes as the responses from both eyes are recorded simultaneously.