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Animal Learning & Behavior

, Volume 19, Issue 3, pp 270–275 | Cite as

Loss of controllability in appetitive situations interferes with subsequent learning in aversive situations

  • Akihito Sonoda
  • Takahiro Okayasu
  • Hisashi Hirai
Article
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Abstract

In two experiments, we examined whether or not a loss of control over food availability would interfere with subsequent two-way shuttle-escape learning. Rats that had experienced loss of control over food delivery were impaired in their acquisition of a shuttle-escape response, relative to the response-contingent and the continuous-reinforcement control rats (in Experiments 1 and 2) and to the lack-of-control and home cage control rats (in Experiment 2). Rats that had received noncontingent food delivery without a prior history of control over food exhibited poorer performance than did the home cage control rats. Moreover, loss of control resulted in a larger interference effect than did lack of control, supporting the view that the learning of response-outcome noncontingency is the main determinant of the interference effect.

Keywords

Interference Effect Animal Behavior Process Target Response Inescapable Shock Horne Cage 
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Copyright information

© Psychonomic Society, Inc. 1991

Authors and Affiliations

  • Akihito Sonoda
    • 1
  • Takahiro Okayasu
    • 1
  • Hisashi Hirai
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of PsychologySophia UniversityTokyoJapan

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