Audio instruction tapes

Audio Instruction tapes are described as a form of semi-automated learning whose potential previously has not been realized. Students do not listen to these tapes; they work along with them. These tapes are not lectures. They do not substitute for the teacher. They require the teacher and the class situation for enforcement of learning. This article describes the tapes available for applied statistics and explains how they are used.     

Hurdle-jump responding in the rat as a function of conspecific odor of reward and nonreward

A hurdle-jump escape response was employed to assess the laboratory rat’s aversion or attraction to different types of conspecific odor. Odorant donor subjects received 112 runway acquisition trials on a continuous reward schedule followed by 32 extinction trials, 112 acquisition trials on a 50% schedule of reward and nonreward followed by 32 extinction trials, or 144 “neutral” trials with no reward in the alley. Different groups of test subjects escaped from odor excreted by odorant subjects on (a) nonrewarded acquisition and extinction trials, (b) rewarded trials during continuous reinforcement, (c) rewarded trials during partial reinforcement, or (d) neutral trials; others escaped from a clean box. The principal findings were: (1) significant aversion to “odor of nonreward” appeared after the donor odorants had received 12 exposures to reward; (2) production of odor of nonreward by odorant subjects changed as a function of training experience with reward; (3) after repeated exposure to odor of nonreward, the escape response habituated; (4) greater or different odor excretion in extinction resulted from subjects trained on a continuous reward schedule than on a partial reward schedule. Relationships of the data to frustration theory were discussed, assuming that inferred differences in production of odor reflect differences in frustration reaction.     

Schedule-induced polydipsia contrast in the rat

Schedule-induced polydipsia was studied using a behavioral contrast paradigm. Food pellets were delivered to food-deprived rats on a response-independent FT 1-min schedule. Licking on a tube produced water on a MULT FR 10 FR 10, MULT FR 10 EXT, or MIXED FR 10 EXT for three rats (Experiment 1) and on a MULT VI VI, MULT VI EXT, or MIXED VI EXT schedule for three other rats (Experiment 2). On the FR schedules, rats could drink more water by increasing lick rates, but on the VI schedules the amount of drinking was fixed by the schedule parameters and was relatively unaffected by lick rates. Relative to MULT FR FR, positive polydipsia contrast was clearly demonstrated on MULT and MIXED FR EXT; but relative to MULT VI VI, contrast was not demonstrated on MULT and MIXED VI EXT. These data suggest that polydipsia contrast occurs only if increased licking permits increased drinking.