Sign-tracking in aversive conditioning

Leclerc, Robert; Reberg, Douglas

doi:10.1016/0023-9690(80)90003-x

Cited by 28 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Research relating to autoshaping (Brown & Jenkins , 1968) and signtracking (Hearst & Jenkins, 1977) provides evidence for stimulusdirected movements and movement tendencies in appetitively motivated situations , and similar findings are being obtained in regard to aversive stimulation (e.g., Bartter & Masterson, 1980 ;Karpicke, Christoph, Peterson, & Hearst, 1977;Karpicke & Dout, 1980;Leclerc & Reberg, 1980). In terms of the present experiment, aversive unconditioned stimuli, such as intense noise and shock, are presumed to energize behavior and to direct it away from their respective spatial locations.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

Response compatibility in transfer from aversive to appetitive training

Bulgatz¹,

Babb

1981

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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In transfer from shock escape to appetitively motivated training in a straight runway, 64 male hooded rats were ·given various pretreatments, or none, prior to transfer. With appropriate controls, running was motivated by high-intensity noise (120 dB) or shock (1 mA), by low-intensity shock (.2 mAl, or by a second-order aversive excitatory stimulus prior to the elimination of those stimulus conditions and the initiation of food reinforcement. In general, all of the pretreatments produced extended suppression in the transfer condition. Controls for latent inhibition indicated none was present. High-intensity shock reduced eating on initial food reinforcement trials, but the other aversive conditions did not. The results were interpreted as possible consequences of stimulus-directive effects.There is now a substantial amount of reasonably consistent evidence that transfer from aversive to appetitive training in the runway produces suppressed responding in the transfer situation in comparison with a procedure in which the prior aversive training is not given (Babb, 1963 ; Babb & Leask, 1969;Mellgren, Haddad, Dyck, & Eckert, 1976 ; Nation, Wrather, Mellgren, & Spivey, 1980;Stoffer & Babb, 1976). One important theoretical question is whether such effects are attributable to some form of response competition or to some more central incompatibility between appetitive and aversive stimulation (Dickinson & Pearce, 1977). While the molar response of running to the goalbox is the same for aversive and appetitive conditions, the molecular components could be different, and possibly competitive (Babb , Bulgatz, & Matthews, 1969) .One way to test for the effects of response competition would be to use an aversive stimulus other than shock , such as loud noise, on the presumption that noise would elicit kinds of component responding that could be different from those elicited by the application of shock to the feet of the animals. Another way of testing for response compatibility would be to use secondorder conditioning, on the presumption that any such conditioning produced by an "off-baseline" conditioning procedure and tested in the runway should be reasonably divorced from first-order response-eliciting effects. If suppressive effects were obtained from the second-order conditioning procedure , it would emphasize the generality of whatever process underlies the production of suppression, and it would also emphasize This report is based on a dissertation submitted to the University of Montana by Marvin G. Bulgatz in partial fulfillment of requirements for the PhD degree.the ability of second-order conditioning to produce effects that are transferable to instrumental responding in the runway . Accordingly, a noise CS was paired with shock, presented randomly with shock, or given without shock in a behavior-restricting apparatus, and then subjects were transferred to noise alone in the runway. To control for possible latent inhibition effects (Lubow, 1973), other animals were presented high-intensity noise, high-intensity s...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

Response compatibility in transfer from aversive to appetitive training

Bulgatz¹,

Babb

1981

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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“…The available evidence suggests that, indeed, animals tend to withdraw from aversive CSs. This negative sign-tracking (Green, 1978;Leclerc & Reberg, 1980;Peden et al, 1977;Wesp, Lattal, & Poling, 1977; Boakes, Note 1) decreases the likelihood that the animal will learn its detailed features. More research is needed, however, to elucidate the nature of behavior evoked by stimuli predicting aversive USs.…”

Section: Stimulus-reinforcer Versusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Where Is It?” Reflex: Autoshaping the Orienting Response

Buzsáki

1982

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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The goal of this review is to compare two divergent lines of research on signal-centered behavior: the orienting reflex (OR) and autoshaping. A review of conditioning experiments in animals and humans suggests that the novelty hypothesis of the OR is no longer tenable. Only stimuli that represent biological "relevance" elicit ORs. A stimulus may be relevant a priori (i.e., unconditioned) or as a result of conditioning. Exposure to a conditioned stimulus (CS) that predicts a positive reinforcer causes the animal to orient to it throughout conditioning. Within the CS-US interval, the initial CS-directed orienting response is followed by US-directed tendencies. Experimental evidence is shown that the development and maintenance of the conditioned OR occur in a similar fashion both in response-independent (classical) and response-dependent (instrumental) paradigms. It is proposed that the conditioned OR and the signal-directed autoshaped response are identical. Signals predicting aversive events repel the subject from the source of the CS. It is suggested that the function of the CS is not only to signal the probability of US occurrence, but also to serve as a spatial cue to guide the animal in the environment.

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“…15,16 Importantly, while sign-tracking is generally recognized as a conditioned behavior directed toward reward cues, reward cues are not the only stimuli capable of eliciting a sign-tracking response. Safety signals, that is, stimuli that signal the omission of an expected aversive event (such as shock), also elicit a sign-tracking response, 17 suggesting that they also may be endowed with incentive salience (through their relationship with the absence of threat) and thereby capable of attracting attention and approach responses in their own right. For example, in contamination-based OCD, washing-related stimuli (eg, soap) may become safety signals through their pairing with reduced contamination threat and anxiety.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compulsivity is measurable across distinct psychiatric symptom domains and is associated with familial risk and reward-related attentional capture

et al. 2019

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Background.Compulsivity can be seen across various mental health conditions and refers to a tendency toward repetitive habitual acts that are persistent and functionally impairing. Compulsivity involves dysfunctional reward-related circuitry and is thought to be significantly heritable. Despite this, its measurement from a transdiagnostic perspective has received only scant research attention. Here we examine both the psychometric properties of a recently developed compulsivity scale, as well as its relationship with compulsive symptoms, familial risk, and reward-related attentional capture.Methods.Two-hundred and sixty individuals participated in the study (mean age = 36.0 [SD = 10.8] years; 60.0% male) and completed the Cambridge-Chicago Compulsivity Trait Scale (CHI-T), along with measures of psychiatric symptoms and family history thereof. Participants also completed a task designed to measure reward-related attentional capture (n = 177).Results.CHI-T total scores had a normal distribution and acceptable Cronbach’s alpha (0.84). CHI-T total scores correlated significantly and positively (all p < 0.05, Bonferroni corrected) with Problematic Usage of the Internet, disordered gambling, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, alcohol misuse, and disordered eating. The scale was correlated significantly with history of addiction and obsessive-compulsive related disorders in first-degree relatives of participants and greater reward-related attentional capture.Conclusions.These findings suggest that the CHI-T is suitable for use in online studies and constitutes a transdiagnostic marker for a range of compulsive symptoms, their familial loading, and related cognitive markers. Future work should more extensively investigate the scale in normative and clinical cohorts, and the role of value-modulated attentional capture across compulsive disorders.

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Sign-tracking in aversive conditioning

Cited by 28 publications

References 19 publications

Response compatibility in transfer from aversive to appetitive training

Response compatibility in transfer from aversive to appetitive training

The “Where Is It?” Reflex: Autoshaping the Orienting Response

Compulsivity is measurable across distinct psychiatric symptom domains and is associated with familial risk and reward-related attentional capture

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