Effects of intertrial interval and exteroceptive feedback duration on discriminative avoidance acquisition in the gerbil

A series of studies of shuttlebox-avoidance learning in the gerbil evaluated the efficacy of an exteroceptive feedback stimulus (FS). Experiment 1 assessed the relative effectiveness of a FS at 30- and 90-sec intertriai intervals (ITIs), and found that the FS and warning signal termination contingencies were additive sources of avoidance reinforcement; i.e., they produced “supernormal acquisition” at the short ITI, but not at the 90-sec ITI. The effectiveness of a FS at the 30-sec ITI was further explored in Experiments 2 and 3, in which FS duration was varied in delayed and trace avoidance conditioning, respectively. In both studies, a FS facilitated acquisition but FS duration was not a critical determinant of performance. These results were interpreted in terms of an expectancy account of the informational value of a FS, and the problem of experimentally distinguishing between cognitive and inhibition-of-fear accounts of avoidance learning was discussed.     

Nonshock confinement duration and shock- and safebox similarity during escape training in rats

Sixty female hooded rats received 70 shock-escape training trials with shock- and safeboxes similar or dissimilar to each other and nonshock (safebox) confinement durations of 5 sec or 20 sec. (Shockbox confinement duration prior to shock onset was 5 sec.) In each confinement condition performance under the similar shock/safe condition was reliably poorer than that under the dissimilar condition. Safebox confinement duration negligibly affected performance under the dissimilar condition, while in the similar condition increasing confinement duration reliably facilitated performance. Comparisons with control data suggest that facilitation of escape was due to the relative shock-safe confinement duration rather than to absolute safebox confinement.     

Effects of retraining following response prevention on extinction of escape behavior

Sixty female hooded rats received a sequence of 40 shock-escape training trials, 20 response prevention (or pseudoprevention) trials, either 0, 5, or 20 shock-escape retraining trials and then nonshock extinction procedures. Results of extinction using escape speed and trials-to-criterion indices showed that, in each retraining condition, response prevention reliably facilitated extinction relative to pseudoprevention controls, the degree of facilitation decreasing as amount of retraining increased. In 5-and 20-trial retraining conditions, prevention procedures also reliably impaired shock-escape performance on early retraining trials, this effect dissipating before the start of extinction.     

A comparison of learned aversions to gustatory and exteroceptive cues in rats

The experiment provides a direct comparison of the ability of subjects (rats) to associate gustatory and exteroceptive stimuli with illness. Previous experiments which have made similar comparisons between gustatory and exteroceptive cues have suffered from certain methodological problems involving stimulus control and compounding. The present experiment utilized a between-subjects design wherein half of the subjects had an auditory cue associated with poisoning and half had a taste cue. In both cases, the other cue was present, but was not predictive of poisoning, The auditory cue, like the taste cue, occurred only during drinking. This comparison was made in both an immediate and a delayed poisoning situation. The experiment found that while subjects were able to quickly associate a taste cue with illness, they were unable to form a similar association between poisoning and the exteroceptive stimulus. Results also showed that subjects will fail to acquire a taste aversion to a novel and salient gustatory cue when that cue is followed by illness only 50% of the time. This latter effect was more pronounced in the delayed poisoning situation.     

Trial and intertrial durations in appetitive conditioning in rats

The effects of trial (T) and intertrial (I) durations were examined in two Pavlovian conditioning experiments with rats, in which a noise conditioned stimulus (CS) was paired with food delivery. In Experiment 1,T was either 10 or 20 sec, andI ranged from 15 to 960 sec, in separate groups of rats. The acquisition rate and final level of conditioned responding showed ratio invariance: They were better predicted by theI/T ratio than byI orT alone. In Experiment 2, theI/T ratio was 6.0 in all the groups, andT was 20, 40, 80, or 160 sec. Ratio invariance was not observed: Despite the commonI/T ratio, the rate of acquisition, final level of conditioned responding, and the ability of the CS to block conditioning of another stimulus differed among the groups. At the same time, the temporal distribution of conditioned responding withinT was similar in all the groups throughout conditioning and extinction and showed superpositioning when normalized acrossT. Many but not all aspects of the data were consistent with scalar timing theory.     

The effects of order of shock durations on helplessness in rats

Whereas rats exposed to a series of progressively decreasing shock durations show deficits in shuttle-escape performance 24 h later, the same number and intensity of shocks in the reverse (increasing) order of durations does not produce the “learned helplessness” effect (Balleine & Job, 1991). We conducted two experiments to establish the generality of this shock-duration order effect on other measures of distress and helplessness in rats. In Experiment 1, rats exposed to decreasing durations of inescapable shock showed reduced consumption of quinine-adulterated water (finickiness), whereas increasing durations produced no finickiness. By contrast, increasing shock durations produced greater conditioned fear to the shock context than did decreasing shock durations in Experiment 2. The differential effects of shock-duration order on finickiness and fear are explicated in terms of the specificity of fear conditioning during exposure to increasing versus decreasing series of shock duration orders.     

Effects of preweaning environmental enrichment on later problem-solving behavior in rats

Two experiments investigated the importance of visual sensory modality in mediating enriched environmental effects during the preweaning period, and the importance of onset and duration of the enriched experience during the same period. Rat mothers and pups were exposed together in an enriched environment for either 7 or 11 days at different periods from Day 1 to Day 21. Also included was a group of rats which received only handling from Day 11 to Day 21 postpartum and another group in which the mothers were exposed to the enriched environment during the last trimester of pregnancy. Some rats were tested at 27 days of age, and others were tested at 64 days of age in the Hebb-Williams maze test. It was found that exposure in the enriched environment for a period of 7 days before the eyes opened improved rats’ problem-solving behavior above that of control rats and to the level of rats which received such experience after the eyes had opened. Handling of rats did not improve problem-solving behavior, nor did exposure during the gestation period. It was concluded that vision is not the most important factor in mediating effects during the preweaning period, since improvement in problem-solving behavior can occur before the visual system is fully developed. It was suggested that the beneficial enrichment effects might be mediated by the mother, who, in some way, transmits additional stimulation to the infant rat during this early stage of development.     

Effects of conspecific odor on rats’ position and behavior in an open field

When rats were tested in a novel open field, half of which had previously been occupied by a conspecific, they tended to enter the predecessor half first and subsequently spent more time in this half. There was proportionally more sniffing of the floor, sniffing of the air, and grooming in the predecessor half compared with the clean one, and proportionally less ambulating, rearing, and sniffing of the wall. Time spent in the predecessor half was unaffected by whether or not the predecessor had been tested under a relatively stressful condition (strong illumination), but rats tested after a “stressed” conspecific ambulated and reared less and showed more inactivity and thigmotaxis. Predecessor influence may be mediated by qualitative and/or quantitative differences in odor associated with urine traces, an influence that could affect results during routine successive open-field testing.     

Conditioned defensive burying in rats free to escape

Rats shocked once by a stationary, wire-wrapped prod bury it if suitable materials are available. Does this conditioned defensive burying occur when rats have the opportunity to flee from the source of aversive stimulation, or is it limited to situations such as those in which it had previously been studied—those in which the relatively small test chamber confined each rat to the immediate vicinity of the prod? In the present experiments, the capacity of rats to flee from the shock prod was enhanced by increasing the floor dimensions of the test chamber up to 200X80 cm (Experiment 1) or by providing the rats with an opportunity to seek refuge in a separate, safe compartment (Experiment 2). Although both of these modifications to the usual conditioned-defensive-burying paradigm significantly reduced the duration of burying and the height of the accumulated mounds, burying remained well above control levels in all experimental conditions.     

Effects of food primes on the operant behavior of nondeprived rats

After rats had been trained to press a lever for food reward, experimenter-initiated food “primes” increased the likelihood of subsequent responding during periods in which the subjects were nondeprived. No such priming effects were found after presentation of a stimulus that had previously been paired with food. In other experiments, nonreinforced leverpresses, as well as subthreshold components of the leverpress response (e.g., forepaw raising), were also found to be enhanced by food primes. Taken together with other reports in the literature, the present findings are consistent with a “motivational aftereffects” interpretation of priming, and also with the notion that all stimuli which possess reinforcing properties possess priming properties as well.     

The effects of internal feedback and self-compassion on the perception of negative feedback and post-feedback learning behavior

Negative feedback confronts learners with errors or failure but holds great learning potential. However, learners might perceive it as self-threatening, and thus react maladaptively. Feedback theories recommend prompting internal feedback prior to external feedback. And self-compassion is found to support adaptive reactions to failure. Thus, this study examined in a 2 × 2 factorial design the effects of prompting internal feedback or self-compassion, or both, on feedback perception and post-feedback learning behavior. Participants (N = 210) completed a brief difficult reasoning test and received failure feedback. Perceived acceptance and fairness of the feedback were higher in the internal feedback and self-compassion conditions compared to the control condition with no prompts. The intervention effects were higher for participants with high perceived competence and low trait self-compassion. No significant effects on post-feedback learning behavior were observed. The results highlight the relevance of internal feedback processes for feedback perception.     

Approach and escape to conspecific odors of reward and nonreward in rats

A three-compartment box was used, and a reward odor, or nonreward (extinction) odor, produced by another rat, was present in the middle compartment. Two control odor procedures were also used. The results showed that rats will approach a location in which another rat has previously been given reward more rapidly than they will escape from that location, but showed the opposite effect when the odor was produced by a rat undergoing extinction. The mere presence of an odor associated with another rat had the effect of producing much slower locomotion as compared to a no-odor control condition.     

Short-term retention in rats: The effect of goal-arm confinement on delayed alternation performance

Gordon and his associates (e.g., Gordon & Feldman, 1978,Learning and Motivation,9, 164–178; Feldman & Gordon, 1979,Learning and Motivation,10, 198–210; Gordon, Taylor, & Mower, 1981,American Journal of Psychology,94, 309–322) have reported that a reactivation treatment significantly enhances memory for prior forcings in delayed alternation using rats. The reactivation treatment consisted of placing the rat in the goal arm to which it had been forced previously on that trial. The confinement occurred in the absence of food and was 5 sec in duration. The present experiments explored the possibility that the treatment might influence performance by affording an opportunity for new information to be acquired during the confinement period. Evidence consistent with this view was found in that (1) accuracy was reduced on trials in which the initial event was a 5-sec confinement to the arm opposite that of the target forcing and (2) increasing the duration of the confinement from 5 to 15 to 45 sec increased the magnitude of this effect. It was concluded that the effectiveness of goal-arm confinement as a reactivation treatment does not necessarily implicate processes of retrieval in delayed alternation behavior.     

Effects of self-assessment feedback on self-assessment and task-selection accuracy

Metacognition and Learning - Effective self-regulated learning in settings in which students can decide what tasks to work on, requires accurate self-assessment (i.e., a judgment of own level of...     

Effects of cooperation and feedback by fellow-pupils on spelling-achievement

In a field experiment among third grade pupils from 15 primary schools, three instruction methods were compared. At five schools (control condition) pupils did spelling exercises as usual, i. e. individually; at five other schools the pupils also worked individually, but checked each other’s work after which they had the opportunity to correct their own mistakes. At another five schools pupils worked in pairs. Each pupil had to check the other pupil’s work and discuss the mistakes. For the low achievers cooperation led to higher achievement than the individual working method. Pupils who checked each other’s work but did not cooperate did not show any more improvement than pupils who worked individually.     

From feedback to revisions: Effects of feedback features and perceptions

Although the effects of peer feedback have been studied from a number of perspectives, much remains to be learned about what leads students to act (or not) on their peers’ feedback in revisions. The present study examined the relationship between peer feedback features, student perceptions as potential mediators (understanding versus agreement with the feedback), and the likelihood of students’ implementation of the feedback. Peer feedback, back-evaluation comments, and revisions from 185 US high school students were analyzed. Investigated feedback features included four cognitive features (identification, explanation, solution, suggestion), and two affective features (mitigating praise, hedges). Logistic regression analyses revealed that: (1) both understanding and agreement with feedback predicted implementation; (2) presence of solutions predicted understanding of feedback; (3) mitigating praise predicted agreement of the problem; and (4) explanation and hedges predicted implementation separately from perception effects. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Role of exteroceptive background context in taste-aversion conditioning and extinction

In two experiments, saccharin (CS) and lithium chloride (US) were paired in a context consisting of specific visual, auditory, tactual, and olfactory cues. The saccharin aversion was then extinguished in a context free from conditioning-context cues. Later, saccharin preference tests were given in the presence and absence of these cues. The results indicated that the background cues of the conditioning trial controlled the amount of saccharin drunk on extinction trials, and, furthermore, that extinction of the taste aversion was context specific; i.e., groups given extinction trials in a different (from conditioning) context retained their saccharin aversion in the conditioning context only. The results indicate an important role played by the exteroceptive context in taste-aversion conditioning.     

Effects of teacher feedback behavior on social acceptance in inclusive elementary classrooms: Exploring social referencing processes in a natural setting

Teacher feedback behavior is a key determinant of the social referencing processes that influence the social acceptance of pupils. The present longitudinal study explores how teacher feedback on academic performance and social behavior is related to social acceptance during classroom activities and recess in the natural setting of inclusive classrooms. Data come from a study with 32 teachers and their 546 first to third grade pupils in Switzerland. Teacher feedback behavior was videotaped and peer nominations and ratings were used to assess social acceptance. Multilevel regression analyses showed that feedback on incorrect social behavior was negatively correlated with feedback on correct academic performance. Teacher feedback on incorrect social behavior and on correct and incorrect academic performance predicted how pupils were accepted by their peers during classroom activities. However, teacher feedback did not affect social acceptance during recess. The effect of teacher feedback behavior on social acceptance appears to depend on context. Social acceptance during classroom activities is influenced by teacher feedback whereas social acceptance at recess is not.     

Effects of duration of feedback on signaled avoidance

Two experiments were carried out to study vertical jumping avoidance learning in rats. In particular, we examined the effects of the duration of a feedback stimulus and of the interval between the end of the feedback stimulus and the start of the next trial on acquisition and extinction of avoidance. In Experiment 1, the duration of feedback was manipulated while intertriai interval (feedback plus no-feedback) was held constant. Animals with feedback lasting more than 1 sec needed fewer trials to reach the acquisition criteria than did animals with no feedback or with 1-sec feedback. No differences were observed in extinction. In Experiment 2, the durations of both feedback and no-feedback were manipulated. Animals without feedback needed more trials to reach the acquisition criterion than did animals with feedback, but the performance of the feedback animals did not differ as a function of feedback duration, no-feedback duration, or total intertrial interval. Again, no differences were observed in extinction. These results indicate that the presentation of feedback improves the acquisition of vertical jumping avoidance, but that this effect is independent of the temporal characteristics of feedback.