Fixed-ratio escape and avoidance-escape from naloxone in morphine-dependent monkeys: effects of naloxone dose and morphine pretreatment.
Escape and avoidance behaviors follow different rules when you remove the aversive, and the client's learning history predicts which pattern you'll see.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Scientists worked with monkeys that were addicted to morphine.
They gave the monkeys naloxone, a drug that causes sudden withdrawal pain.
The monkeys could press a lever to escape or avoid this pain.
The team tested different naloxone doses and watched how hard the monkeys worked.
What they found
Escape responding looked like an upside-down U.
Low naloxone doses made monkeys press more.
Very high doses made them press less.
Avoidance-escape showed smaller changes.
When they switched to salt water instead of naloxone, escape stopped fast.
But avoidance-escape kept going in some monkeys.
Their past training mattered.
How this fits with other research
SIDMAN (1962) built the first adjustable avoidance schedules.
This study used those same ideas but added drug withdrawal as the aversive.
Mosk et al. (1984) found that stronger shocks don't always make rats avoid better.
This matches our finding that bigger naloxone doses can actually reduce escape.
Rees et al. (1967) showed methylphenidate changes avoidance timing.
Our work extends this by showing morphine history changes how monkeys respond to naloxone.
The drug history becomes part of the stimulus control.
Why it matters
Your client's learning history changes how they react to aversives.
A child who learned to escape tantrums might stop quickly when escape no longer works.
But a child who learned to avoid tantrums might keep avoiding even when triggers change.
Check which pattern your client shows before planning your intervention.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Test if the problem behavior is escape or avoidance by briefly blocking the aversive and watching the response pattern
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Lever pressing by rhesus monkeys was maintained by morphine injections during four equally spaced sessions each day. During other periods, lever pressing was maintained by timeout from a continuous naloxone infusion (escape), or by timeout from a stimulus that preceded naloxone injections, or termination of the injections (avoidance-escape). As naloxone dose increased in the escape procedure, response rate increased to a maximum and then decreased. In the avoidance-escape procedure, response rate generally increased as naloxone dose increased, but the changes in rate were small compared to the excape procedure. Substitution of saline for naloxone in the escape procedure led to a very low response rates within three sessions. In the avoidance-escape procedure, rate decrements produced by saline substitution appeared to be related to the behavioral history of the monkey. Previous escape experience led to more rapid decreases in responding when saline was introduced, whereas responding was maintained for 15 sessions in a monkey without prior escape conditioning. Morphine pretreatment produced comparable, dose-dependent decreases in response rates in both procedures. The rate-decreasing effects of morphine were exacerbated when no naloxone was delivered in the escape procedure.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1975 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1975.23-415