Between- and within-subject effect of shock intensity on avoidance in goldfish (Carassius auratus).

Bintz, John

doi:10.1037/h0030695

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Thus, effective reinforcement was greater with strong shock because the amount of fear reduction occurring with CS termination constituted a greater proportion of the total amount of fear, and, as expected, avoidance performance was directly related to shock intensity. Results compatible with these findings were also reported by Bintz (1971), who utilized a design similar to the second experiment presented here. With goldfish as subjects, Bintz found better avoidance performance with strong than with weak shock.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Fear of the CS and of the context in two-way avoidance learning: Between- and within-subjects manipulations

Callen

1986

Animal Learning & Behavior

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The roles of es fear and of context fear in signaled two-way avoidance learning were examined in two experiments in which shock intensity was manipulated either between or within subjects. For each subject, two discrete ess, a light and a white noise, were used. For between-subjects comparisons, both ess were paired with the same shock intensity, weak or strong. Under this condition, in which fear of the ess and the context was greater with strong than with weak shock, avoidance performance varied inversely with shock intensity. For within-subjects comparisons, the light was paired with strong shock and the white noise with weak shock, or vice versa. In this case, context fear was constant during presentation of each es, and avoidance performance varied directly with shock intensity. Additionally, intertrial responding was directly related to the amount of context fear. These results support effective reinforcement theory, an extension of two-factor theory, which acknowledges the contribution to avoidance learning both of es fear and of context fear. The interchangeable effectiveness of visual and auditory stimuli as ess is discussed with regard to stimulus specificity in avoidance learning.One of the most reliable findings in the avoidancelearning literature is that in either a signaled or an unsignaled two-way avoidance task performance is better with weak than with strong shock at the levels of shock usually employed (e.g., Bauer, 1972;Cicala & Kremer, 1969;Dieter, 1977;Johnson & Church, 1965 1964;Scoles, 1982Scoles, /1983 Theios, Lynch, & Lowe, 1966). This finding poses a difficulty for many theories of avoidance learning because generally it is assumed that the greater amount of fear that is conditioned with strong shock should lead to better avoidance learning.A theory proposed in 1971 by W. R. McAllister et a1. can, however, account for the inverse relationship and can also predict how certain variables can alter this relationship. Their effective reinforcement theory (see also W. R. McAllister, D. E. McAllister, Dieter, & James, 1979) is an elaboration of Mowrer's (1947) two-factor theory of avoidance learning. The important role played by fear of the conditioned stimulus (CS) in accounting for two-way avoidance learning is acknowledged, but in addition, the contribution of the fear conditioned to the contextual cues is emphasized. When shock is received on escape trials during avoidance training, fear becomes conThe experiments reported herein were supported in part by Grant MH-36610 from the National Institute of Mental Health awarded to Wallace R. McAllister and Dorothy E. McAllister, to whom the author is indebted for their valuable assistance throughout this research, and by a fellowship awarded to the author from Northern Illinois University. Requests for reprints should be sent to Edward J. Callen, Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115. ditioned to both of these sources. On avoidance trials, when shock is not received, it is assumed that the effective reinforceme...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Fear of the CS and of the context in two-way avoidance learning: Between- and within-subjects manipulations

Callen

1986

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…Bintz, 1971;Ehrensing et al, 1982 with goldfish). Learning did not occur if fish received an analgesic treatment with morphine (Ehrensing et al, 1982), showing the implication of pain in the behaviour.…”

Section: Postural and Behavioural Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying and monitoring pain in farm animals: a review

Prunier

Mounier

Neindre³

et al. 2013

Animal

103

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One important objective for animal welfare is to maintain animals free from pain, injury or disease. Therefore, detecting and evaluating the intensity of animal pain is crucial. As animals cannot directly communicate their feelings, it is necessary to identify sensitive and specific indicators that can be easily used. The aim of the present paper is to review relevant indicators to assess pain in several farm species. The term pain is used for mammals, birds and fish, even though the abilities of the various species to experience the emotional component of pain may be different. Numerous behavioural changes are associated with pain and many of them could be used on farms to assess the degree of pain being experienced by an animal. Pain, as a stressor, is associated with variations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis as well as in the sympathetic and immune systems that can be used to identify the presence of pain rapidly after it started. However, most of these measures need sophisticated equipment for their assessment. Therefore, they are mainly adapted to experimental situations. Injuries and other lesional indicators give information on the sources of pain and are convenient to use in all types of situations. Histopathological analyses can identify sources of pain in experimental studies. When pronounced and/or long lasting, the pain-induced behavioural and physiological changes can decrease production performance. Some indicators are very specific and sensitive to pain, whereas others are more generally related to stressful situations. The latter can be used to indicate that animals are suffering from something, which may be pain. Overall, this literature review shows that several indicators exist to assess pain in mammals, a few in birds and very few in fish. Even if in some cases, a single indicator, usually a behavioural indicator, may be sufficient to detect pain, combining various types of indicators increases sensitivity and specificity of pain assessment. Research is needed to build and validate new indicators and to develop systems of pain assessment adapted to each type of situation and each species.

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“…One explanation assurnes that with increasing shock intensity, there is a concomitant increase in the frequency of competing responses, such as freezing (Bintz, 1971) or "staying" (Theios et al, 1966), which interfere with avoidance responding. This account has previously been found wanting.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preexposure to situational cues produces a direct relationship between two-way avoidance learning and shock intensity

McAllister

Dieter

et al. 1979

Animal Learning & Behavior

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In Experiment I, four groups of subjects (n = 16 each) were exposed to the situational stimuli of a shuttlebox apparatus for 4 h. Subsequently, 200 two-way avoidance trials were administered (100/day) with either .3-or 1.6-mA shock and with either small or large reward (presence or absence of visual stimuli following the response). Avoidance performance was directly related to shock intensity on both days and to magnitude of reward on the 2nd day. In Experiment 2, four groups of subjects (n = 24 each) were given 4 h of exposure either to the situational stimuli of the shuttlebox or to a neutral box. Then, 10 two-way avoidance trials were given with 1.6-mA shock. Subsequently, subjects were allowed to escape from one of the shuttlebox compartments to an adjacent safe box. Following preexposure to situational stimuli, avoidance performance was superior whereas escape-from-fear performance was inferior. This latter finding demonstrated that less fear of situational cues was present during avoidance training in the preexposed condition. All of these results support the effective reinforcement theory, an extension of two-factor theory, which emphasizes the importance for avoidance learning of the amount of fear of situational cues present following a response. 165In a one-way task in which subjects can avoid shock by moving to an area distinctively different from the one where shock is administered, avoidance performance has been found to be directly related to shock intensity (Dieter, 1976;Moyer & Korn, 1966). However, when an avoidance response does not remove the subject from situational stimuli which have been paired with shock, as in signaled two-way or barpress avoidance tasks, performance has been found to be related inversely to shock intensity, at least within the range of intensities usually employed. This latter finding is, in fact, one of the most reliable in the avoidance learning literature (e. A theoretical position which seems to account for the above findings is the effective reinforcement theory proposed by McAllister et al. (1971McAllister et al. ( , 1976 as an extension of the two-factor theory of avoidance learning (Mowrer, 1947). According to this position, the effective reinforcement for an avoidance response is related (a) positively to the amount of fear reduction occurring with the response and (b) negatively to the amount of fear present following the response. In addition, as the total amount of fear increases, it is assumed that the amount of fear present following the response (b) becomes relatively more important than the amount of fear reduction (a) in determining effective reinforcement. In the signaled twoway avoidance task, fear becomes conditioned to both the discrete conditioned stimulus (CS) and to the situational cues of each shuttle compartment when shock occurs on escape trials, with more fear being conditioned to these stimuli the more intense the shock. Although the amount of fear reduction would be greater in a strong-than in a weak-shock group when the CS is terminated fo...

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Between- and within-subject effect of shock intensity on avoidance in goldfish (Carassius auratus).

Cited by 18 publications

References 7 publications

Fear of the CS and of the context in two-way avoidance learning: Between- and within-subjects manipulations

Fear of the CS and of the context in two-way avoidance learning: Between- and within-subjects manipulations

Identifying and monitoring pain in farm animals: a review

Preexposure to situational cues produces a direct relationship between two-way avoidance learning and shock intensity

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