The Nature of Sexual Reinforcement

Abstract

Sexual reinforcers are not part of a regulatory system involved in the maintenance of critical metabolic processes, they differ for males and females, they differ as a function of species and mating system, and they show ontogenetic and seasonal changes related to endocrine conditions. Exposure to a member of the opposite sex without copulation can be sufficient for sexual reinforcement. However, copulatory access is a stronger reinforcer, and copulatory opportunity can serve to enhance the reinforcing efficacy of stimulus features of a sexual partner. Conversely, under certain conditions, noncopulatory exposure serves to decrease reinforcer efficacy. Many common learning phenomena such as acquisition, extinction, discrimination learning, second-order conditioning, and latent inhibition have been demonstrated in sexual conditioning. These observations extend the generality of findings obtained with more conventional reinforcers, but the mechanisms of these effects and their gender and species specificity remain to be explored.

Appetitive and Consummatory Male Sexual Behavior in Japanese Quail Are Differentially Regulated by Subregions of the Preoptic Medial Nucleus

“…In these conditions, all male subjects who engaged in copulatory behavior acquire the learned social proximity response (this involves standing in an area in front of the window and looking though it at the female) that is used in our experiments to test appetitive behavior. This procedure is based on experimental protocols originally developed by Dr. M. Domjan at the University of Texas (Domjan and Hall, 1986a,b;Domjan et al, 1986;Crawford et al, 1993;Domjan, 1994), and the specific modifications introduced in our laboratory have been validated and described in detail (Balthazart et al, , 1997aBalthazart and Ball, 1997;C astagna et al, 1997). They are only briefly summarized below.…”

The Operant-Respondent Distinction Revisited: Toward An Understanding Of Stimulus Equivalence

“…Topographical similarities of behavior during acquisition and extinction have been shown for the two preparations (see Kimble, 1961), and prior temporal conditioning has been found to facilitate fixed interval (FI) schedule control when the same temporal intervals are used (Trapold, Carlson, & Myers, 1965). Indeed, the only qualitative difference between operant and respondent contingencies that has been noted is the effect of partial reinforcement, which is more effective than continuous reinforcement in maintaining operant behavior but less effective than continuous reinforcement in maintaining respondent behavior (Crawford, Holloway, & Domjan, 1993). Clearly, operant and respondent conditioning are both forms of stimulus control, and the utility of any further distinction must be questioned.…”

Effects of Lesions of Nucleus taeniae on Appetitive and Consummatory Aspects of Male Sexual Behavior in Japanese Quail

“…In these conditions, all male subjects who engaged in copulatory behavior acquire the learned social proximity response (this involves standing in an area in front of the window and looking through it at the female) that is used in our experiments to test appetitive behavior. This procedure is based on experimental protocols originally developed by Dr. M. Domjan at the University of Texas [Domjan and Hall, 1986a, b;Domjan et al, 1986;Crawford et al, 1993;Domjan, 1994] and the specific modifications introduced in our laboratory have been validated and described in detail [see Balthazart et al, 1995Castagna et al, 1997;Balthazart and Ball, 1998]. They are only briefly summarized below.…”