On the comparative efficacy of memories and expectancies as cues for choice behavior in pigeons

The same reliable color cues were equally available to different groups of pigeons trained on a delayed conditional simultaneous visual discrimination task. However, for different groups, prechoice and postchoice food or no-food events were programmed in such a way that, theoretically, memories of these events, expectancies of them, both, or neither could also serve as reliable cues for choice. In the case where both prechoice and postchoice food/no-food events were correlated with correct choices, two ways of correlating the prechoice and postchoice events with one another were examined. For synergism subjects, when the prechoice event was food, the postchoice event was also food, and when the prechoice event was no food, the postchoice event was no food; therefore, on a given trial, the operative memory and expectancy were of the same event. For antagonism subjects, when the prechoice event was food, the postchoice event was no food, and vice versa; thus, for these subjects, the memory and expectancy active on a given trial were of opposite events. Expectancies were found to exert significantly greater control over choice behavior than memories. Moreover, antagonism subjects chose significantly less accurately than synergism subjects or than an expectancy only group. A follow-up experiment confirmed this effect. The relevance of these results to various models of memory and expectancy was addressed.     

Adolescent smoking behavior and outcome expectancies

Adolescent smoking behavior is assumed to be associated with smoking outcome expectancies. Results in this paper are based on data from the control group of two data collections among Norwegian secondary school students taken approximately 30 months apart (T1 and T2). The dimensionality of smoking outcome expectancies was the same at both time points, revealing three components ("Addicted", "Not harmful" and "Social"). After correction for attenuation, the Pearson's correlation between T1 and T2 was 0.41 for the total sumscore, indicating low to moderate relative stability. When examining smoking expectancy sumscore means by smoking habits at T1 and T2, never smokers were different from smokers on both occasions. Never smokers scored low on "Social" and "Not harmful", and high on "Addictive". All associations were statistically significant (p < 0.001). The "Social" dimension was the strongest predictor of smoking behavior at T1 and T2. One of the outcome expectancy sumscores ("Addictive") at T1 predicted smoking habits at T2 after controlling for smoking habits at T1 (p < 0.01). This predictor was significant also after entering outcome expectancy sumscores at T2 into the model (p < 0.05). These results indicate that outcome expectations other than the health-related ones should be paid attention to when planning new prevention programs.     

The role of approach and avoidance motives for unemployed job search behavior

The current study investigated the role of approach and avoidance motives for unemployed job search behavior. Two approach motives (employment and PJ-fit) and two avoidance motives (low-expectation and low-interest) were distinguished. Antecedents and consequences of these motives were examined using a sample of 303 unemployed clients of reemployment agencies, and obtaining motive ratings from both the unemployed and their counselors. The findings showed that three motives (employment, low-expectation and low-interest) improved the prediction of job search behavior in addition to a set of antecedents that have been widely studied in the literature. In turn, the motives were predicted by different antecedents. The findings suggest that it is important to identify and address unemployed approach and avoidance motives since they might affect reemployment success.     

On the construction and maintenance of expectancies

Reaction time techniques were used to examine the role of attention in the construction and maintenance of expectancies. In Experiment I, a primed letter matching task, expectancies were observed through a delay (cost) in responding to misprimed letter arrays. A secondary probe task was interpolated between prime and array letters on some of the trials, with attentional demands inferred from delayed responding to probes. By varying the amount of time between onset of the prime and either a probe or letter array, it was found that there is attentional involvement (as reflected in probe inhibition) prior to the observation of expectancies (as reflected in letter matching cost). It was also found that the interpolation of an attention-demanding probe task did not entirely disrupt primed expectancies. Experiment II found that an expectancy persists even when an interpolated distractor task signals that the expectancy is no longer valid. These expectancies were found to decay as a function of time. The implications of these results for attention allocation and memory activation views of expectancy were discussed.     

Second-order avoidance behavior in monkeys

Two monkeys were trained on a three-component multiple schedule using discrete trials. In one component (food), a response terminated a red stimulus and produced food and S(Delta). In the second component (avoidance), a response terminated a green stimulus and avoided shock. In the third component (optional), a response terminated a blue stimulus and produced S(Delta). The consequence of not responding in the blue stimulus, however, was the production of either a food or an avoidance trial. Manipulation of these consequences showed that when food trials were available only a small percent of the time after optional trials, the subjects tended not to respond in the blue, even though this led to an increase in the total number of avoidance trials per day. If only avoidance trials followed as a consequence of not responding in the optional component, the animals terminated the blue stimulus and avoided the avoidance trials. Throughout the experiment both subjects maintained consistently low shock rates (about 10 per day) and these were not affected by the various manipulations. The data suggest that a stimulus associated with avoidance can be a conditioned aversive stimulus and will maintain a more remote avoidance response under certain conditions.     

Matching the graphical display of data to avoidance versus approach motivation increases outcome expectancies

This study is the first demonstration of the effect of motivational focus (approach vs. avoidance) on the interpretation of graphical view of personal data, specifically, weight loss progress. In two experiments, participants were randomly assigned to see the bogus weight loss data charted against either a goal or a baseline reference line. In the first experiment, we accessed participants' chronic motivational focus. In the second study, we primed motivation by exposing the participants to either a gain- or loss-focused health message. The results demonstrate that participants with either chronic or manipulated approach motivation predicted higher future weight loss in the goal reference line condition than in the baseline reference line condition. The opposite pattern was observed for participants with either chronic or manipulated avoidance motivation. The potential of matching graphical data display to personality characteristics to promote effective health management is discussed.     

The role of the cs and avoidance period duration in discriminated avoidance conditioning

In an experiment investigating the effect of CS duration on discriminated bar-press conditioning, subjects were assigned to one warning period duration (1.5, 5.0 or 15.0 sec.) on the first day of avoidance training, and to one of the three durations on the second day of training. On each day avoidance behaviour was greatly influenced by the duration of the CS (warning) period, but the duration on day I had no effect on the second day's avoidance performance. Groups receiving no CS during training, although provided an avoidance contingency, showed little conditioning, but produced highly significant amounts of intertrial responding. In a second experiment, subjects receiving CS on day I were shifted to no CS on day II. Avoidance performance on day II was not significantly different from the day II performance of subjects in Experiment I having two training sessions with the CS present or absent on both days.     

Extinction of Sidman avoidance behavior

Extinction of Sidman avoidance behavior by eliminating the noxious stimulus was studied in Sprague-Dawley rats with bar-pressing as the response. Each of three subjects was trained and extinguished on each of the following schedules in a different order: nondiscriminated, response-shock interval = 20 sec, shock-shock interval = 5 sec; nondiscriminated, response-shock interval = 40 sec, shock-shock interval = 5 sec; discriminated, response-white noise interval = 15 sec, noise-shock interval = 5 sec, shock-shock interval = 5 sec. Less than one 4-hr session was required for extinction for all procedures. When a warning stimulus was present, resistance to extinction increased. Subjects did not, however, respond to avoid the signal. Only small differences in extinction were found after training on different schedules with no warning signal.     

Stimulus control of avoidance behavior

The introduction of a warning signal preceding shocks greatly increased the effectiveness of avoidance responding. Periods of “warm-up” at the beginning of the session were eliminated, and the number of shocks received by the subjects was greatly reduced. With response-shock interval constant, response rate increased as the interval between the response and the onset of the warning signal was shortened. The response tended to occur shortly after the onset of the warning signal regardless of the duration of these “safe” periods. A greatly elevated response rate was maintained even when the duration of the safe period was reduced to 0.3 sec. Thus, the pre-shock signal obtained nearly exclusive control of the responding and overrode the usual “temporal discrimination” of the response-shock interval.     

Signal functions in discriminated avoidance behavior

Four rats were trained to lever press under a discriminated avoidance/escape schedule in which separately signalled safe and warning periods were 100 sec and 32 sec respectively. The auditory and not the visual component of the compound warning signal became associated with the discriminative control of lever pressing. Avoidance behavior also came under temporal control, in that the probability of lever pressing increased as the warning period progressed. Timing began with the onset of the warning signal rather than the offset of the safe signal. However, after the warning signal had been progressively eliminated, timing began with the offset of the safe signal. When neither signal was normally available, the temporal distribution of avoidance behavior changed markedly. Drifts in the temporal distribution of lever pressing occurred throughout the study; these were manipulated for two animals.     

Shaping avoidance behavior in restrained monkeys

Lever-pulling avoidance behavior of 24 monkeys was actively shaped with a manual shock-control box and a closed-circuit TV system. A negative reinforcement procedure was used wherein a periodically occurring body shock was postponed each time the subject moved toward the lever. All subjects were trainable with this method, two-thirds of them in fewer than five, 1- to 2-hr sessions. Negative reinforcement was more effective than a punishment procedure.     

Effectiveness of the counterconditioning procedure in eliminating avoidance behavior

Data were obtained on the effectiveness of three forms of counterconditioning—each differing in the degree to which competing responses were introduced. Counterconditioning was also compared with an extinction procedure in eliminating an instrumental avoidance response. Only the counterconditioning procedure which evoked and reinforced another conditioned response during extinction of the avoidance response, was significantly more effective than a traditional extinction procedure in achieving a decrement in avoidance responding and this was only on the first session on which such procedures were in effect. When the opportunity to perform the competing response was removed, only Ss in this group evidenced a significant increase in avoidance responding.

All procedures were equally effective over sessions in eliminating avoidance behavior. A delay in effectiveness occurred to the degree to which a procedure introduced a competing response. It was in terms of the immediacy of response reduction and achievement of a very low rate of responding with very few responses being performed, that the counterconditioning procedure was superior to the extinction procedure.

The implication of these results for behavior theory and therapy were elaborated.