MAINTAINED GENERALIZATION TESTING OF CONDITIONED SUPPRESSION.
Teaching several cues along the same stimulus line quickly builds orderly generalization gradients.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with rats in a small lab cage. A warning click rate told the rat a mild shock was coming. The rat learned to stop pressing a lever when it heard that click.
The researchers then tested many click rates in one long session. They wanted to see how far the fear would spread along the click-speed line.
What they found
The fear did not spread evenly. When the warning click was slow, the rats froze only to slow clicks. When the warning click was fast, they froze only to fast clicks.
The curve of fear looked like a smooth hill. The top of the hill sat right on the trained warning click.
How this fits with other research
Hendry et al. (1969) ran the same kind of test but added extra safe clicks. Their hills were lopsided, not smooth. The difference is training style: one warning versus many.
Neuringer (1973) showed that birds need side-by-side click training to get any hill at all. Birds trained with only one click and silence got a flat line. This backs up why E’s many-click method worked.
Mello (1966) used mild punishment instead of shock warning. Again, only rats that had to tell clicks apart gave orderly hills. The rule is the same across procedures: discrimination training shapes the gradient.
Why it matters
If you want clean stimulus control, give the learner several clear points on the same dimension. Do not rely on one cue versus silence. This old rat study reminds us that rich, within-dimension practice builds sharp, predictable generalization curves in any species.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study concerns the use of a multiple stimulus discrimination procedure for producing data on the generalization of conditioned suppression. Four rats were maintained on a variable interval schedule of milk reinforcement in the presence of five stimuli varying in auditory click rate. When response rates were stable, electric shock was regularly paired with the termination of one of the click stimuli. For two rats the shock was paired with the slowest click rate, and for two rats shock was paired with the fastest click rate. The VI schedule remained in effect. Plots of the relative rates of response to each of the five stimuli yielded concave gradients for both animals suppressed at the slowest click rate, and flat gradients with a sharp drop at the warning stimulus for both animals suppressed at the fastest click rate. When the warning stimuli were reversed for both pairs of subjects, both gradient forms were reproduced. The present procedure was contrasted with procedures used by other investigators.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1965 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1965.8-47