Abstract
Two experiments, using mice, investigated the effects of preexposure to shock on subsequent bar-press-to-escape performance. Experiment 1 demonstrated the usual interference effect: Subjects exposed to escapable shock performed better than subjects exposed to no shock, who in turn performed better than those exposed to inescapable shock. In Experiment 2, a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design compared groups that were preexposed to escapable or inescapable shock of 2- or 6-sec duration for either 60 or 180 trials. An interaction between number and duration of inescapable shocks was shown, such that it was possible to produce an interference effect with short duration shocks when a large number of preexposures was employed. This finding is congruent with a number of hypotheses which attempt to account for such interference effects, but is difficult to reconcile with simple motor inactivity or uncontrollability interpretations.
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LUBOW, R.E., ROSENBLATT, R., & WEINER, I. The confounding controllability in the triadic design for demonstrating learned helplessness. Unpublished manuscript, 1979. Available from authors.
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This article is part of a thesis submitted to Bar-Ilan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ma degree by the first author under the direction of the second author. The research was supported, in part, by a grant to the second author from the Israel Commission of Basic Research.
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Caspy, T., Lubow, R.E. Performance Decrement Following Shock Preexposure: The Effect of Number and Duration of Escapable and Inescapable Shocks. Psychol Rec 31, 183–194 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394734
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394734