Some factors involved in the comparison of response systems: acquisition, extinction, and transfer of head-poke and lever-press Sidman avoidance.
Switching the response form during avoidance fails unless you add immediate extra cues.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Scientists compared two ways rats could avoid shock. One group poked their head through a hole. The other pressed a lever.
Both groups had to respond before a silent timer ran out or they got shocked. The team then switched the rules to see if old learning blocked new learning.
What they found
Head-pokes kept shocks lower and took longer to stop when the shock came back. Lever-presses quit faster.
If rats first learned the lever, they could not learn the head-poke later when the lights and sounds were removed. The old response blocked the new one.
How this fits with other research
Kelly (1973) used the same lever-press shock set-up and showed doubling shock time works like doubling intensity. J et al. now show the response shape also matters.
Harrison et al. (1975) next year showed more training makes stimulus control sharper. Their steep gradients line up with J’s finding that extra practice can lock in one response.
SHETTLEWORTCHARNEY et al. (1965) saw that shock tied to the response stops behavior fastest. J et al. add a twist: once that response is set, switching topography fails without extra signals.
Why it matters
If you ever change how a client avoids or escapes, give the new form instant feedback. Add a brief light, click, or vibration the moment the new response happens. This breaks the block created by the old topography and speeds transfer.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Head poking, a suggested natural escape reaction to shock for the rat, was compared to lever pressing in a Sidman avoidance study. Both responses could be emitted at any time, but only one was effective in a given session. Acquisition and extinction of the two responses were compared under both signalled and unsignalled avoidance. Then, a test for transfer was conducted in which acquisition conditions were re-instated, but the effectiveness of the responses was reversed. Three differences between responses were noted: (a) head poking was superior in reducing shock rates under signalled conditions; (b) head poking was more resistant to extinction, especially under signalled conditions; (c) under unsignalled conditions, animals were unable to learn to head poke if they had previously learned to lever press. Findings a and c were pursued in later experiments. Finding a depended on the location of the warning signal with respect to the response system. When the lever press required approach to the warning signal, the head poke was superior. But when the head poke required approach to the warning signal, the two responses were equally effective. Finding c depended on the absence of feedback for head poke during transfer. Two conclusions are offered: first, the two responses appear to obey the same laws when their topographical differences are taken into account. Second, response feedback appears to be more critical in transfer than in original acquisition.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1974.22-371