Attack, avoidance, and escape reactions to aversive shock.
Let the learner attack the off switch instead of trying to stop the attack.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers shocked rats in a small box. They watched what the rats did next.
Some rats could escape or avoid the shock. Other rats had to stay and take it.
The team tracked attack, escape, and avoidance responses in each setup.
What they found
Shock always triggered attack. The rats bit anything close.
Escape quickly became the top response. It overrode the other moves.
When the attack response was woven into the avoidance task, learning sped up.
How this fits with other research
Madsen et al. (1968) repeated the setup and added a bite sensor. The same instant biting appeared, proving the attack is real and measurable.
Weisman (1970) later showed a fix for lever-press tasks. Disabling the lever right after shock cut competing moves and sped avoidance, echoing the current fix of letting the rat bite during avoidance.
Dawson et al. (2000) found parallel results in a boy with autism. His aggression dropped once the ritual-escape contingency was removed, showing aggression can serve an escape function across species.
Why it matters
If you use aversive events in training, expect aggression to pop up. Instead of fighting it, build the response into the contingency. Let the learner hit, bite, or press a pad that also avoids the aversive. This removes interference and can speed skill gain.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Aversive stimuli are known to produce the behaviors of both escape and attack. The interaction between these two basic reactions was studied with rats and monkeys using many shock-escape and shock-avoidance procedures. All procedures produced attack if a target was present, the attacks occurring shortly after shock delivery. The number of attacks during escape or avoidance was a direct function of the number and duration of shocks received. Consequently, any aspect of the procedure that produced many shocks also produced many attacks such as initial acquisition, extinction, or an increase of the response requirement for escape. The escape tendency acquired prepotency over the tendency to attack since successful escape eliminated attack behavior. The attack tendency retarded escape behavior only during acquisition when the preoccupation with attack precluded the opportunity to learn the escape response. This mutual interference of escape and attack was eliminated when the attack and avoidance tendencies were combined by using biting attack as the shock-avoidance response. The result was unusually rapid conditioning of the biting-attack response. These interactions indicate that both the attack and escape tendency should be considered whenever aversive stimulation is delivered.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1967 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1967.10-131