Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 

About: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes is an academic journal published by American Psychological Association. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Classical conditioning & Discrimination learning. It has an ISSN identifier of 2329-8456. Over the lifetime, 1399 publications have been published receiving 83188 citations.

Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory in rats.

Abstract: Rats were tested on an eight-arm maze in a paradigm of sampling with replacement from a known set of items until the entire set was sampled. The first three experiments demonstrated that the animals performed efficiently, choosing an average of more than seven different arms within the first eight choices, and did not utilize intramaze cues or consistent chains of responses in solving the task. The second three experiments examined some characteristics of the rats' memory storage. There was a small but reliable recency effect with the likelihood of a repetition error increasing with the number of choices since the initial instance. This performance decrement was due to interference from choices rather than just to the passage of time. No evidence was found for a primary effect. The data also suggest that there was no tendency to generalize among spatially adjacent arms. The results are discussed in terms of the memory processes involved in this task and human serial learning. When distinctive exteroceptive discriminative stimuli are consistently associated with a particular spatial location, rats preferentially use these stimuli for discrimination learning, a phenomenon that is usually referred to as "place learning." If place learning can be used to solve a discrimination problem, rats learn very rapidly. If place learning cannot be used to solve a discrimination problem, rats learn slowly and almost invariably adopt a "position habit" or "spatial hypothesis" before finding the correct solution. (Relevant literature reviews may be found in Gleitman, 1955; Kimble, 1961, p. 223; Olton & Samuelson,

A mode control model of counting and timing processes

Abstract: The similarity of animal counting and timing processes was demonstrated in four experiments that used a psychophysical choice procedure. In Experiment 1, rats initially learned a discrimination between a two-cycle auditory signal of 2-sec duration and an eight-cycle auditory signal of 8-sec duration. For the number discrimination test, the number of cycles was varied, and the signal duration was held constant at an intermediate value. For the duration discrimination test, the signal duration was varied, and the number of cycles was held constant at an intermediate value. Rats were equally sensitive to a 4:1 ratio of counts (with duration controlled) and a 4:1 ratio of times (with number controlled). The point of subjective equality for the psychophysical functions that related response classification to signal value was near the geometric mean of the extreme values for both number and duration discriminations. Experiment 2 demonstrated that 1.5 mg/kg of methamphetamine administered intraperitoneally shifted the psychophysical functions for both number and duration leftward by approximately 10%. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the magnitude of cross-modal transfer from auditory signals to cutaneous signals was similar for number and duration. In Experiment 4 the mapping of number onto duration demonstrated that a count was approximately equal to 200 msec. The psychophysical functions for number and duration were fit with a scalar expectancy model with the same parameter values for each attribute. The conclusion was that the same internal mechanism is used for counting and timing. This mechanism can be used in several modes: the "event" mode for counting or the "run" and the "stop" modes for timing.

Contextual control of the extinction of conditioned fear: tests for the associative value of the context.

Abstract: Four conditioned suppression experiments examined the influence of contextual stimuli on the rat's fear of an extinguished conditioned stimulus (CS). When rats received pairings of a CS with shock in one context and then extinction of the CS in another context, fear of the CS was renewed when the CS was returned to and tested in the original context (Experiments 1 and 3). No such renewal was obtained when the CS was tested in a second context after extinction had occurred in the conditioning context (Experiment 4). In Experiment 2, shocks presented following extinction reinstated fear of the CS, but only if they were presented in the context in which the CS was tested. In each experiment, the associative properties of the contexts were independently assessed. Contextual excitation was assessed primarily with context-preference tests in which the rats chose to sit in either the target context or an adjoining side compartment. Contextual inhibition was assessed with summation tests. Although reinstatement was correlated with demonstrable contextual excitation present during testing, the renewal effect was not. Moreover, there was no evidence that contextual inhibition developed during extinction. The results suggest that fear of an extinguished CS can be affected by the excitatory strength of the context but that independently demonstrable contextual excitation or inhibition is not necessary for contexts to control that fear.

Reinstatement of fear to an extinguished conditioned stimulus.

Abstract: Four experiments are reported which demonstrate the ability of an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) presentation following extinction to partially reinstate the conditioned response. These experiments are interpreted in terms of the strengthening of an extinction-reduced UCS representation. The first two experiments address alternative interpretations in terms of sensitization, reinstating the stimulus conditions of acquisition, conditioning of background cues, and stimulus generalization. Experiment 3 suggests that reinstatement is possible with a UCS qualitatively different from that used in conditioning. Experiment 4 explores an alternative extinction procedure which especially preserves the conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus association while encouraging modification of the UCS representation. The results are discussed both in terms of related empirical phenomena, such as spontaneous recovery and sensory preconditioning, and in relation to the general role of the UCS representation in conditioning.

The role of awareness in Pavlovian conditioning: Empirical evidence and theoretical implications

Abstract: This article reviews research over the past decade concerning the relationship between Pavlovian conditioning and conscious awareness. The review covers autonomic conditioning, conditioning with subliminal stimuli, eyeblink conditioning, conditioning in amnesia, evaluative conditioning, and conditioning under anesthesia. The bulk of the evidence is consistent with the position that awareness is necessary but not sufficient for conditioned performance, although studies suggestive of conditioning without awareness are identified as worthy of further investigation. Many studies have used inadequate measures of awareness, and strategies for increasing validity and sensitivity are discussed. It is concluded that conditioning may depend on the operation of a propositional system associated with consciousness rather than a separate, lower level system.