Running-wheel avoidance learning in rats (Rattus norvegicus): effects of contingencies and comparisons of different strains

In Experiment 1, we showed that active- and passive-avoidance responding in a running wheel was learned because of the avoidance contingency. In Experiment 2, strain differences among four commercially bred rats were assessed in an active-avoidance paradigm. Wistar, Donryu, and Fischer rats learned faster than Sprague-Dawleys. In Experiment 3, learning in a multiple active/passive avoidance schedule was examined, and both components of this task were learned. This multiple schedule was used to investigate strain differences in selectively bred rats in Experiments 4 and 5. Tsukuba low-emotional (TLE) rats responded more than Tsukuba high-emotional (THE) rats in both components. However, discrimination of passive components was better in THE than in TLE rats. Syracuse high-avoidance rats were superior in the active component, whereas Syracuse low-avoidance rats showed superior performance in the passive component.     

Quantitative relations between avoidance behavior and pituitary-adrenal cortical activity

The rate at which monkeys pressed a lever and avoided shocks was manipulated in several ways. Measurements were also made of their plasma levels of 17-hydroxycorticosteroids. The rate at which the animals pressed the lever and the frequency with which they received shocks were both implicated as determiners of the steroid levels.     

Conditioned suppression in the gerbil

The present report describes apparatus and procedures for investigating conditioned suppression of a running response in the gerbil. Data are presented which demonstrate that the conditioned suppression observed in this situation is not an artifact of alpha responses, pseudoconditioning, or sensitization. An analysis of differential conditioning indicated that cue similarity and US intensity are negatively related to cue-specific differential responding.     

General activity as instrumental: application to avoidance training

Some data on Sidman avoidance in the pigeon are presented to illustrate a technique of instrumental training which places minimal restriction upon the form of the reinforced response. The effect of a warning signal is demonstrated, and the course of discrimination-reversal is described.     

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.     

Sidman avoidance in the fish

Goldfish trained in a shuttle box under conditions in which changing compartments postponed shock for 20 sec showed a substantial, negatively accelerated increase in rate of crossing. That the avoidance-contingency was responsible for the change in behavior is suggested by the fact that no significant increase in rate of crossing appeared in control animals which were paired with the experimentals and shocked whenever the experimental animals were shocked; there is some evidence, indeed, that the control animals were handicapped in their subsequent adjustment to the avoidance condition. The introduction of a warning stimulus (light) in the last 5 sec of the response-shock interval decreased the rate of crossing in the first 15 sec and increased the rate of crossing in the last 5 sec. Reducing the shock-shock interval from 20 sec to 2.5 sec had no marked effect. The results are compared with those obtained in analogous experiments with higher animals.     

Individual differences in approach and avoidance movements: how the avoidance motive influences response force

The present research is based on the assumption that people differ in their responsiveness to incentives and threats. In two experiments we examined whether the trait corresponding to the responsiveness to threats (avoidance motive) and the trait corresponding to the responsiveness to incentives (approach motive) influence voluntary motor behavior toward or away from stimuli. In Experiment 1, stimuli consisted of positive and negative words within a lexical decision task. Participants moved their arms backward in order to withdraw from the stimuli or forward in order to approach them. In Experiment 2, participants responded with forward or backward arm movements to neutral sounds coming from behind or in front of them. The main dependent variable was the strength of the approach and avoidance movements. In both experiments this variable was related to participants' avoidance-motive disposition but not to their approach-motive disposition. Avoidance-motivated individuals generally showed more forceful avoidance movements than approach movements. There was no effect of stimulus valence on the strength of the movements in Experiment 1. Furthermore, the results of Experiment 2 suggest that it is not the physical direction (forward or backward) but rather the movement's effect of distance reduction (approach) or distance increase (avoidance) in regard to the stimulus that defines a movement as an approach or an avoidance movement.     

Transection of direct anterior thalamic afferents from the hippocampus: effects on activity and active avoidance in rats

This investigation demonstrates the importance of the direct hippocampo-anterior thalamic component of the postcommissural fornix in the control of general locomotion and active avoidance. Transection of anterior thalamic afferents from the hippocampal formation (subicular cortex), at the point where they exit from the fornix posterior to the septum, is sufficient to enhance bidirectional active avoidance acquisition and increase general activity. This transection may also interrupt fibers to or from other thalamic nuclei and the anterior septum. However, destruction of connections of the anterior septum with the hippocampus, habenula, and thalamus by transection in the coronal plane anterior to the descending fornix columns, without damage to the subiculothalamic fibers, increases general activity levels without damage to the subiculothalamic fibers, increases general activity levels without affecting active avoidance behavior. The activity increase in this case resembles that seen after septal lesions rather than that seen after hippocampal lesions. Thus, destruction of a single fornix component contributing afferents to the anterior thalamic nuclei reproduces at least part of the hippocampal syndrome. This suggests that these fibers contribute significantly to the control of these behaviors and may mediate active avoidance changes resulting from hippocampal and fornix damage.     

Myopic regret avoidance: Feedback avoidance and learning in repeated decision making

Decision makers can become trapped by myopic regret avoidance in which rejecting feedback to avoid short-term outcome regret (regret associated with counterfactual outcome comparisons) leads to reduced learning and greater long-term regret over continuing poor decisions. In a series of laboratory experiments involving repeated choices among uncertain monetary prospects, participants primed with outcome regret tended to decline feedback, learned the task slowly or not at all, and performed poorly. This pattern was reversed when decision makers were primed with self-blame regret (regret over an unjustified decision). Further, in a final experiment in which task learning was unnecessary, feedback was more often rejected in the self-blame regret condition than in the outcome regret condition. We discuss the findings in terms of a distinction between two regret components, one associated with outcome evaluation, the other with the justifiability of the decision process used in making the choice.     

Approach and avoidance motivation in the social domain

This research put Gable's (in press) hierarchical model of approach-avoidance social motivation to empirical test using newly developed measures of friendship-approach and avoidance goals. The results from Study 1 supported the psychometric soundness of the new goal measures and showed the anticipated differential predictive patterns for the two goals. The results from Study 2 provided further evidence of the psychometric soundness of the new goal measures and provided support for the full hierarchical model in longitudinal analyses of subjective well-being and physical symptomotology. Implications of the present research for understanding motivation both within and beyond the social domain are discussed.     

Signalled and unsignalled free-operant avoidance in the pigeon

Pigeons were trained to depress a lever to avoid electric shock under free-operant avoidance schedules without a warning signal, or with a warning signal that could be terminated only by a response. Most birds in the signalled avoidance procedure terminated more than 50% of the warning signals before shock. In the unsignalled avoidance procedure, several birds formed a temporal discrimination and received relatively few shocks; other birds responded only in post-shock bursts, and received many more shocks.