Discrimination performance as affected by training procedure, problem difficulty, and shock for the correct response.

Fowler, Harry; Spelt, P.F.; Wischner, George J.

doi:10.1037/h0025141

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Muenzinger hypothesized that this vicarious trial-and-error responding facilitated discrimination learning by allowing the rat to compare various aspects of the two alternatives at the choice point. Others have had similar conclusions (e.g., Fago & Fowler, 1972;Fowler, Spelt, & Wischner, 1967;Hoge & Stocking, 1912;Stephenson, Weir, & Zigler, 1959;Taylor, 1974).…”

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confidence: 70%

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Munson

Crosbie

1998

Psychol Rec

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Punishment improves discrimination learning, and programmed instruction is an elaborate form of discrimination training, so the present experiment assessed whether punishment also improves performance on programmed instruction. The cost of such improvement in terms of increased training time and dissatisfaction of subjects also was assessed. Three college students completed a computerized version of Holland and Skinner's (1961) programmed text. One subject received a two-component multiple schedule within a reversal design, and two subjects received the same twocomponent multiple-schedule without a return-io-baseline phase. During baseline, subjects received 5¢ for each frame completed, regardless of whether responses were correct or incorrect. Multipleschedule conditions were either baseline conditions or a loss of 5¢ for each incorrect response (punishment). Punishment improved performance by 10%, increased training time by 15%, and did not affect reported satisfaction. The most likely mechanisms for this improved performance are that punishment increased study time or the salience of stimuli. This experiment showed that punishment can improve performance by one letter grade without subject dissatisfaction or significantly increasing training time.

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confidence: 70%

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Munson

Crosbie

1998

Psychol Rec

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“…Consistent with this interpretation, the "shock-right" facilitation effect is typically absent in an easy discrimination in which the discriminative stimuli (e.g., light-dark) are highly dissimilar and hence preclude a distinctive-cue function of the shock (e.g., Wischner & Fowler, 1964;Wischner, Fowler, & Kushnick, 1963); in contrast, the facilitation effect is consistently observed in more difficult (e.g., bright-dim) discriminations in which the discriminative stimuli are similar and thus potentiate the shock's cue function (e.g., Fowler, Spelt, & Wischner, 1967;Fowler & Wischner, 1965). Furthermore, if the aversiveness of the shock is reduced through the administration of sodium amytal (Fowler, Goldman, & Wischner, 1968), the facilitation occurring in a difficult discrimination is, within limits, an increasing S-shaped function of shock intensity, consistent with the Weber principle relating performance to the discriminable cue properties (e.g., the intensity) of a stimulus.…”

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confidence: 88%

Facilitating stimulus effects of reward and punishment in discrimination learning

Fowler

Hochhauser

Wischner

1981

Animal Learning & Behavior

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To demonstrate a facilitating stimulus effect, as opposed to an incentive effect, of food reward, rats were trained on an easy, light-dark discrimination with different amounts of reward for correct and incorrect responses (l-O, 2-0, 3-1, and 5·1 pellets, respectively), and with shock or no shock administered in the correct goalbox. Both errors and trials to criterion were fewer with a large reward differential (LRD: 2-0and 5-1), as compared with a small reward differential (SRD: 1-0 and 3-1), but were not affected by the "base" reinforcement condition of either lor 0 pellets for the incorrect response. In addition, choice and arm speeds during early training were positively related to the combined, or average, number of pellets contingent upon both correct and incorrect responses, indicating a generalization of reward expectancies. Although shock uniformly suppressed arm speeds under all reward conditions, it facilitated discrimination learning in the SRD conditions. That such facilitation occurred only when the conditions of reward for correct and incorrect responses were relatively similar indicates that not only shock, but also food can function as a distinctive cue: As a stimulus selectively applied to one response, it can decrease the similarity of the alternatives, and, in this manner, it can faciltate performance.Studies of the facilitating effect of mild shock punishment for the food-rewarded response in visual discrimination learning (see Fowler, 1971;Fowler & Wischner, 1969) have indicated that shock functions as a highly discernible or "distinctive" cue: It reduces the similarity of the discriminative-stimulus compounds constituting the response alternatives, and thus it facilitates performance by reducing the generalization of reward and nonreward expectancies between the alternatives. Consistent with this interpretation, the "shock-right" facilitation effect is typically absent in an easy discrimination in which the discriminative stimuli (e.g., light-dark) are highly dissimilar and hence preclude a distinctive-cue function of the shock (e.g., Wischner & Fowler, 1964;Wischner, Fowler, & Kushnick, 1963); in contrast, the facilitation effect is consistently observed in more difficult (e.g., bright-dim) discriminations in which the discriminative stimuli are similar and thus potentiate the shock's cue function (e.g., Fowler, Spelt, & Wischner, 1967;Fowler & Wischner, 1965). Furthermore, if the aversiveness of the shock is reduced through the administration of sodium amytal (Fowler, Goldman, & Wischner, 1968), the facilitation occurring in a difficult discrimination is, within limits, an increasing S-shaped function of shock intensity, consistent with the Weber principle relating performance to the discriminable cue properties (e.g., the intensity) of a stimulus. The same relationship between a facilitating effect and the intensity of a stimulus has also been observed for a neutral white-noise cue used in place of shock for the correct response (Fago & Fowler, 1972). The fact that either an aversive or...

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“…Hull and Spence (1938) felt that corrected Ss should learn faster than noncorrected Ss since the former are reinforced for approaching a particular stimulus on every trial. Those who have found that the noncorrection procedure results in faster learning than the correction procedure have explained their results by pointing to differential generalization of secondary reinforcement (Fowler, et al, 1967), differential frustration (Mooper, 1967), differential running speed (McKelvey, 1956), and differential reinforcement of irrelevant habits (McKelvey, 1956).…”

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confidence: 93%

“…Yet, Hooper (1967) found no difference between training procedures in the initial acquisition of a black-white discrimination using a Y-maze while McKelvey (1956) found noncorrection to be superior to correction in the acquisition of a similar discrimination using a Grice apparatus. Fowler, et al (1967) found an interaction between training procedure and task difficulry in a T-maze using a light discrimination. Noxth (1950aNoxth ( , 1950b, Hull andSpence (1938), andSeward ( 1943) all have reported no differences between training procedures in the acquisition of position discriminations in T-mazes.…”

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confidence: 95%

“…Differences in training procedures have been shown to account for behavioral differences in the rheoretically significant studies of shock for correct responses (Fowler, Spelt, & Wischner, 1967), drive-stimulus discrimination (Besch, Morris, & Levine, 1963), and the overlearning reversal effect (Hooper, 1967). Differences in training procedures have been suspected of accounting for differences in behavior in studies of continuous and noncontinuous discrimination learning (Spence, 1940), place versus response learning (Restle, 1957), proactive inhibition in infrahuman animals (Kehoe, 1963), probability matching (Estes, 1962), and differential discriminability of cues (Babb, 1968).…”

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confidence: 97%

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Training Procedures and Task Difficulty in Brightness and Position Discriminations by Rats

Allison

1972

Psychol Rep

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This research concerned training procedures (correction vs noncorrecdon), type of discrimination task (position vs brightness), and task difficulty in two 2 x 3 experiments using rats in single-unit mazes. An interaction was found berween type of uaining procedure and task difficulry for the brightness task, with noncorrection Ss requiring relatively fewer trials to reach a criterion than correction Ss as the task became more difficult. A scatistically insignificant interaaion was found for the posiaon task.

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Discrimination performance as affected by training procedure, problem difficulty, and shock for the correct response.

Cited by 16 publications

References 8 publications

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Effects of Response Cost in Computerized Programmed Instruction

Facilitating stimulus effects of reward and punishment in discrimination learning

Training Procedures and Task Difficulty in Brightness and Position Discriminations by Rats

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