Reinforcer and response specificity in appetitive transfer of control

Abstract

Three experiments examine transfer from appetitive Pavlovian conditioning to appetitive instrumental responding by varying the similarity between conditions of Pavlovian reinforcement and instrumental reward. After conditioning with rats confined in a restraining device, a CS for electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB)produced substantial facilitation of operant responding for ESB, while a CS for food facilitated operant responding for food. However, no effects on rate of responding for food were seen during a CS for ESB. In a fourth experiment, four groups of rats were trained to barpress for rewarding electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB)and then given discriminative Pavlovian conditioning with ESB. The groups differed in the degree of similarity between the stimulus-response sequences present during Pavlovian conditioning and those occurring in instrumental responding. As similarity increased, so did the degree of conditioned facilitation in subsequent transfer tests. These results indicate that conditioned incentive responses or reinforcer-derived expectancies are specific to the conditions under which they develop,rather than generalized emotional or motivational responses.

Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning

“…A particular reinforcer occurs freely in the presence of each background stimulus. Although previous experiments in our laboratory have found little ability of a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus to augment instrumental responses, such transfer has been reported by others (e.g., Baxter & Zamble, 1982;Kruse, Overmier, Konz, & Rokke, 1983;Lovibond, 1983). Moreover, some results suggest that such augmentation is more likely to be observed with Pavlovian conditioned stimuli that are of longer duration, such as the background stimuli of the present study (e.g., Brady, 1961;Henton & Brady, 1970;Kelly, 1973;Meltzer & Brahlek, 1970;Meltzer & Hamm, 1974, 1978.…”

Pavlovian influences on goal-directed behavior in mice: The role of cue-reinforcer relations

“…Interestingly, other investigators have implicated such competition in failures to observe PIT. For instance, Baxter and Zamble (1982) reported that short duration CSs can be made to potentiate ongoing instrumental responding as long as the animals are prevented from acquiring competing (e.g., magazine approach) responses. Similarly, Delamater and Oakeshott (2007) found that Pavlovian extinction experience actually facilitates (sensoryspecific) PIT, perhaps reflecting extinction-induced reduction of competing Pavlovian approach responding.…”

Encoding of the unconditioned stimulus in Pavlovian conditioning

“…Specifically, a CS depressed performance of an instrumental response trained with a different outcome but left unaffected performance of a response trained with the same outcome. It is notable that, in all these studies, training of the Pavlovian CSs followed training of the instrumental responses in either a free operant (Baxter & Zamble, 1982) or a discriminated operant procedure (Kruse et al, 1983) or was intermixed with discriminative instrumental training (Colwill & Rescorla, 1988). It is possible that experience with an instrumental contingency may have affected learning about the Pavlovian CSs and their outcomes.…”

“…Of particular relevance to this issue are studies by Baxter and Zamble (1982), Kruse et al (1983), and Colwill and Rescorla (1988). Baxter and Zamble conducted a series of experiments in which they varied the identity of the outcome used to train an instrumental response and a Pavlovian CS.…”

“…More extensive analyses of the effect of devaluing the first-order stimulus on responding to Pavlovian second-order stimuli have yielded comparable results (Rescorla, 1980). Similarly, observation of the impact of a CS on instrumental performance has frequently served as a probe for assessing the presence of Pavlovian conditioning (Baxter & Zamble, 1982;Bull, 1970;Bull & Overmier, 1968;Kruse, Overmier, Konz, & Rokke, 1983;Rescorla & LoLordo, 1965). Finally, a number of recent studies have shown that the interposition of USs in a noncontingent fashion undermines the acquisition of Pavlovian conditioning (Durlach, 1983;Durlach & Shane, 1993;Rescorla, 1984;Stanhope, 1990).…”