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Free-Operant Escape-Avoidance with Sequential Warning Stimuli II: Effects Of Differential Signal Order Reversal, Extinction, Signal Elimination, and Punishment

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Abstract

Three rats were trained on a multiple continuous escape-avoidance with warning stimuli; continuous escape-avoidance without warning stimuli schedule. During the warning stimuli (WS) components, three 5-sec duration, auditory and visual WS were provided (S1, S2, and S3). When the WS order was scrambled, each rat still emitted the majority of its response in the presence of a particular WS. Elimination of avoidance capability (extinction) produced maintained responding to all WS. Presentation of only one WS produced an increase in responding during its presence. Punishment of responding in the presence of a particular WS produced response suppression during that interval and those after but not before it. In general, the data support the “WS as aversive” view (two-factor theory), but also lend support to the “WS as SD” position. Apparently, a WS may serve simultaneously as both a conditioned aversive stimulus and an SD, thus providing a negative reinforcement analogue to the conjunctive conditioned reinforcer and SD functions that stimuli provide in appetitive situations.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Ferris State College, Big Rapids, MI, 49307, USA

    Richard Pisacreta

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Pisacreta, R. Free-Operant Escape-Avoidance with Sequential Warning Stimuli II: Effects Of Differential Signal Order Reversal, Extinction, Signal Elimination, and Punishment. Psychol Rec 32, 551–565 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394814

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