The present study employed a Pavlovian-instrumental-transfer paradigm to investigate the role of conditioned fear in appetitive discrimination learning. Each of three Pavlovian training procedures was used to establish a conditioned fear excitor (CS+), a "neutral" CS (CSo), and a conditioned fear inhibitor (CS-). Then, the CSs were administered to rats in the three groups contingent upon the rewarded response in a difficult visual discrimination. In addition, half of each group received shock punishment for each incorrect response. Relative to CSo, CS+ facilitated performance in contrast to the usual interfering effect of conditioned suppressors; conversely, CS-retarded performance even when its reinforcing action (fear inhibition) was potentiated by punishment for the incorrect response. These results, together with other findings showing a reversed ou tcome when the CSs are administered for the incorrect response, indicate that Pavlovian conditioning comprises both general signaling and affective functions, the former reflecting a basic "expectancy" or nominal type of cognitive processing in the rat.Although the present study focused on transfer between Pavlovian conditioning and instrumental learning, it was a direct outgrowth of previous research on shock-right facilitation, i.e., the facilitating effect of mild shock for the food-rewarded response in a visual disc rimination task. This paradoxical effect of punishment has been attributed to the discriminability, or cue function, of the shock (Fowler, 1971; Fowler, Fago. & Wischner, 1971;Fowler & Wischner, 1969). When the stimulus compounds constituting the discrimination alternatives (e.g., T arms) are made similar, expectancy of reward conditioned to the cues in the rewarded arm will generalize to the cues in the nonrewarded arm (and similarly. nonreward expectancy will generalize to the rewarded arm), with the result that performance is retarded. However, when a stimulus. even an aversive one such as shock, is presented in relation to the rewarded response, it can function as a "distinctive" cue to reduce between-arm generalization effects and thus facilitate discrimination-given, of course, that the cue effect of the shock is sufficient to overcome its aversive effect.Two investigations have been designed to separate the cue and aversive components of punishment. In the first of these (Fowler, Goldman, & Wischner, 1968), amobarbital was used to reduce the aversive effect of different intensities of shock administered for the rewarded response in a difficult bright-dim discrimination. The results of this study showed that in *This study was supported in part by Grant~H-08482 from the National Institute of Mental Health, United States Public Health Service, and by Grant GB-24119 from the National Science Foundation. 81contrast to no-drug controls, for which performance was initially facilitated and then retarded across increasing intensities of shock, the discriminative performance of Ss injected with amobarbital improved as an S-shaped function of shock...

To investigate delay-of-reinforcement factors controlling error tendencies in retrace-correction training, shock-right and no-shock rats were subjected following an error to different choice-point delays during which the visual S D was either present or absent. Longer choice-point delays progressively reduced both errors and trials to criterion, as well as the magnitude of the shock-right facilitation effect. Presence or absence of the S D was found to interact with length of the delay interval: at a 7.5-sec. delay, the performance of 5s for which the S D was present was facilitated over that of 5s for which it was absent, whereas the reverse held true at a 15-sec. delay. The results were interpreted as delineating the role of both primary and secondary reinforcement in controlling the rate of error reduction in correction training and, relatedly, in providing a basis by which shock-right training can facilitate performance in an easy discrimination task.