Transfer of eyelid conditioning from instrumental to classical reinforcement and vice versa.

Abstract

Two parallel experiments investigated transfer to instrumental eyelid conditioning following 0, 5, 10, or 20 classical reinforcements with the same CS and transfer to classical eyelid conditioning following 0, 5, 10, or 20 instrumental reinforcements that were contingent on .Ss emitting an eyelid response that resembled a classically conditioned CR upon the appearance of the CS.Amount of transfer to instrumental conditioning was a progressively increasing function of the number of pretransfer classical reinforcements, and the instrumental acquisition curves were similar to those previously obtained. Also, the conditioned (C) or voluntary (V) classification of the instrumental response (IR) form resembled the response form that was recorded during pretransfer training. Transfer from instrumental to classical conditioning was not influenced by the number of pretransfer instrumental reinforcements, the classical acquisition curves were abnormal, and the response form in the transfer phase was not related to the response form recorded in the pretransfer phase. It is concluded that transfer from classical to instrumental training occurs readily and is a function of the number of pretraining classical reinforcements, but that a parallel transfer from instrumental to classical conditioning may be more difficult to demonstrate if it does occur.

Eyelid conditioning performance when the mode of reinforcement is changed from classical to instrumental avoidance and vice versa.

“…Grant, Kroll, Kantowitz, Zajano, and Solberg (1969) reviewed several studies which have demonstrated positive transfer from classical to instrumental conditioning and positive transfer of differential classical to differential instrumental conditioning but found no reports of positive transfer from instrumental to classical conditioning. Grant et al (1969) investigated transfer of responses from Stage I classical reinforcement to Stage II instrumental reward reinforcement and vice versa. They found that response rate during subsequent instrumental reward conditioning was a progressively increasing function of the number of Stage I classical reinforcements.…”

“…They found that response rate during subsequent instrumental reward conditioning was a progressively increasing function of the number of Stage I classical reinforcements. In addition, the V or C classification of an *S"s eyelid responses using the Hartman-Ross (1961) The classical conditioning reinforcement used by Grant et al (1969) was a corneal airpuff-a mildly aversive unconditioned stimulus (UCS)-while the instrumental reinforcement was a symbolic reward. Before Stage I classical conditioning, their 5s were given neutral instructions asking them to adopt a passive attitude, but before instrumental reward conditioning the 5s were asked to adopt what amounted to an active, problem-solving attitude.…”

“…The asymmetry of response transfer found by Grant et al may have been caused, at least in part, by (a) the asymmetry of response transfer from paradigms using aversive reinforcement to paradigms using reward reinforcement and (6) the asymmetry of preshift reinstruction. Grant et al (1969) suggested that another possible reason for the asymmetry of response transfer found by them was that the CR produced by classical conditioning was adequate to trigger the instrumental reward devices, but the response typically learned during their instrumental reward phase was of low amplitude and of a topography that would be ineffective in protecting the cornea in the subsequent classical conditioning. In one case, then, the initial classical conditioning made available a response which would be effec-tive in the subsequent instrumental reward phase and positive, systematic transfer was obtained.…”

“…Using the same transfer paradigm and avoiding some procedural problems encountered by Grant et al (1969), the present experiment was designed to compare the transfer of responses conditioned by classical and instrumental avoidance reinforcement. The corneal airpuff can be used in both classical conditioning and instrumental avoidance training (e.g., Hansche & Grant, 1965;Kimble, Mann, & Dufort, 1955;Logan, 1951;Moore & Gormezano, 1961), so that the need for preshift reinstruction and problems with rewarding versus aversive stimuli can be eliminated.…”

Learning and Timing of Voluntary Blink Responses Match Eyeblink Conditioning

“…In subsequent studies, the onset latency and the shape of the blink responses were used to weed out voluntary responses 14 . The latency method involved excluding participants who had a high proportion of blinks with an early onset 15, 16 .…”