Choosing between predictable shock schedules: Long- versus short-duration signals.
Rats will work to get shorter warning and safety signals, so keep cues brief in clinical settings.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team let rats pick between two warning lights. One light meant shock would come in 5 seconds. The other meant shock would come in 20 seconds.
The rats could also choose safety signals. These lights told how long the shock-free time would last.
What they found
Every rat picked the 5-second warning. They wanted the shorter wait.
When both choices were safe, they still wanted the shorter signal. Shorter cues felt better even when no shock was coming.
How this fits with other research
Stein et al. (1958) first showed that warning length matters. They used 3- versus 5-minute cues and saw less freezing with the short cue. Rider et al. (1984) now shows the animal will actually work to get that shorter cue.
Boudreau et al. (2015) looked at delay cues for food, not shock. Mice learned faster when each delay had its own sound. The rat data match this: time-tagged cues guide choice in both reward and aversion cases.
Winett et al. (1972) seems to disagree. Monkeys paid less attention when signals came very often. But their task was vigilance, not choice. The monkey had to watch; the rat got to pick. Different procedure, different story.
Why it matters
Your clients also like short, clear warnings. Give a 5-second ‘hands down’ cue before restraint, not a 30-second countdown. If you use ‘wait’ cards, keep the wait brief and pair the card with quick relief. Short signals build trust; long ones build dread.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Two experiments assessed the relative aversiveness of different duration preshock signals (5 and 20 seconds) and different duration stimuli identifying shock-free periods. In the first experiment, the responding of 15 of 18 rats was maintained when it produced changes from a predictable-shock condition with a 5-second preshock signal to an identical schedule with a 20-second preshock signal; responding was not maintained when it produced the opposite changes. These results occurred with intershock intervals of both 120 seconds and 240 seconds. The second experiment assessed whether changing to the 20-second schedule was maintained by properties of the preshock signals identifying the shock periods or by properties of the stimuli identifying the shock-free periods. Four subjects were given training with the two signaled schedules in an operant chamber and then later given off-baseline preference tests in a shuttlebox. When given a choice between preshock signals, subjects chose the 5-second signals over the 20-second signals. However, when given a choice between stimuli identifying shock-free periods, subjects chose the stimulus identifying the shorter shock-free periods (i.e., the one previously correlated with the 20-second signals). These findings are discussed within the Rescorla and Wagner model of stimulus compounds and within the context of safety as a contrast phenomenon.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1984 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1984.41-319