Preference for Signaled Shock in Rats? Instrumentation and Methodological Errors in the Archival Literature

Biederman, Gerald B.; Furedy, John J.

doi:10.1007/bf03394416

Cited by 47 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…A related argument has been made to account for certain cases of preference for signaled shock (e.g. , Biederman & Furedy, 1976). In the present case, however, all shocks were signaled in both the differentiated and undifferentiated conditions, and if it were possible for the animal to use the shock signal as a cue to engage in responses that either avoided or attenuated the impending shock, there seems no reason why this behavior would not have occurred equally in both conditions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Preference for information about shock duration in rats

D’Amato

Safarjan

1979

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Rats were permitted to control, by means of a changeover response, the amount of time spent in either a "differentiated" or an "undifferentiated" condition. Shock occurred in both conditions on the same variable-time schedule, half of the shocks being short (.75 sec) in duration, the other half, long (5 sec). In the differentiated (informative) condition, all short shocks were preceded by one signal and all long shocks were preceded by a discriminatively different signal. No information about shock duration was available in the undifferentiated condition, as the same signal preceded short and long shocks. A clear and consistent preference emerged for the differentiated condition, i.e., for information about shock duration. The relevance of this finding for theories which attempt to account for the preference-for-signaled-shock phenomenon was discussed.A number of studies have shown that, given a choice between signaled shocks and identical shocks that are unsignaled, rats frequently show a strong preference for the signaled condition (e.g., Badia & Culbertson, 1972;Lockard, 1963;Perkins, Seymann, Levis, & Spencer, 1966). A variety of mechanisms have been suggested to account for this preference. According to the preparatory response hypothesis, the signals enable the animal to engage in "preparatory" responses which serve to reduce the experienced aversiveness of the shocks (e.g., Perkins, 1968). The information (or uncertainty reduction) hypothesis takes the somewhat more general view that any situation that provides information about important environmental events will be preferred (largely because of uncertainty reduction) over a competing situation that contains less information about these same events (e.g., Berlyne, 1960). Finally, the safetysignal hypothesis emphasizes nonsignal periods as the source of control for the preference-for-signaledshock phenomenon. Animals prefer the signaled condition because shock never occurs during nonsignal (discriminable shock-free) periods and, as a consequence, nonsignal periods generate a much lower level of fear than is elicited by comparable nonshock periods in the unsignaled condition (e.g., Seligman & Binik, 1977, pp. 165-180).The validity of these competing interpretations has been the subject of a number of studies, the results of which generally confirm that discriminable shockfree periods are indeed a powerful source of control The present experiment addressed a simple question. Granted that information regarding nonshock periods is a strong source of behavioral control, does information about impending aversive events serve any controlling function at all; i.e., is such information reinforcing? This issue was investigated by providing certain information about the nature of the impending shock in one condition and withholding such information in a second condition. Rats were permitted to control, by means of a "changeover" response, the amount of time spent in one of two, mutually exclusive, conditions, one informative with respect to shock duration, the oth...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Preference for information about shock duration in rats

D’Amato

Safarjan

1979

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…Others disagreed with this interpretation (Biederman & Furedy, 1976b) and argued that continued preference for the signaled condition, following increases in shock density, may have resulted from "response fixation." This fixation is said to occur when previously established responses are reflexively elicited by some mechanism which becomes increasingly effective with stronger or more frequent shock.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Confounding and the changeover procedure. Some investigators argue that the changeover procedure confounds choice of the alternate condition with other variables such as response bias and stimulus change (Biederman & Furedy, 1976b, 1979Furedy & Biederman, 1981). This argument rests on the assumption that changeover responding indicates preference for the alternate condition and not responding indicates preference for the imposed condition.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preference for Signaled Over Unsignaled Shock Schedules: Ruling Out Asymmetry and Response Fixation as Factors

Abbott¹,

Badia²

1984

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Experiment 1 tested whether a "symmetrical" choice procedure yields results different from those previously reported using the "unidirectional" standard changeover procedure (e.g., Badia & Culbertson, 1972). Subjects could change at any time from unsignaled to signaled shock by pressing a lever and from signaled to unsignaled shock by pressing a second lever. Results were identical to those of the standard procedure and showed that the standard procedure is fully adequate. Experiment 2 tested whether choice of high density signaled shock over low-density unsignaled shock (Badia, Coker, & Harsh, 1973) resulted from initial training with equal-density schedules. Subjects were trained and tested with signaled shock twice as dense as unsignaled shock. Three of four subjects strongly preferred the signaled condition, thus ruling out carry-over and "response fixation" as alternative explanations.

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