Abstract
In Experiment 1, four groups of rats received conditioned suppression training in which a tone was reinforced with shock. If the tone had been previously paired with response-independent food, aversive conditioning was slightly facilitated by comparison to control groups preexposed either to the tone randomly associated with food or to the tone and food unpaired. However, by comparison to a control which was not preexposed to the tone, animals receiving prior pairings of the tone and food showed retarded aversive conditioning. Experiment 2 replicated the facilitation in aversive conditioning after the tone had been paired with food relative to the random control condition and demonstrated that this difference occurred even if the tone and background stimuli continued to be associated with response-independent food during aversive conditioning. This result suggests that pairing a stimulus with an appetitive reinforcer reduces the retardation of aversive conditioning produced by stimulus preexposure.
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This research was supported by a grant from the United Kingdom Science Research Council.
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Dickinson, A. Appetitive-aversion interactions: Facilitation of aversive conditioning by prior appetitive training in the rat. Animal Learning & Behavior 4, 416–420 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214432
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214432