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Biological Boundaries of Learning
... The possibility that special learning effects may occur with ecologically relevant CSs has been considered for some time. Investigators of biological constraints and adaptive specializations in learning have highlighted differences in how learning occurs under conditions that appear to be more ecologically valid than standard laboratory procedures (e.g., Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Shettleworth, 1972). These issues have been discussed by Bolles (1970) and, later, by Fanselow and Lester (1988) in relation to avoidance learning. ...
... One early theorist in this area proposed that arbitrary versus ecologically relevant learning may be characterized as different points along a continuum of preparedness (Seligman, 1970) and suggested that ecologically relevant stimuli would show not only more rapid acquisition, but also related changes in a variety of other learning effects, such as extinction, blocking, and the effects of the CS-US interval (Seligman & Hager, 1972). With few exceptions (e.g., LoLordo, Jacobs, & Foree, 1982), however, this broader claim has not been empirically evaluated. ...
... A learning continuum arranged in terms of the extent to which the CS includes features of the US or in terms of the position of the CS in the causal sequence that leads to the US is reminiscent of the continuum of preparedness that has been proposed to characterize biological constraints on learning (Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972). According to this concept, an organism's evolutionary history shapes not only its sensory and motor mechanisms, but also its ability to learn certain types of tasks. ...
Laboratory investigations of Pavlovian conditioning typically involve the association of an arbitrary conditioned stimulus (CS) with an unconditioned stimulus (US) that has no inherent relation to the CS. However, arbitrary CSs are unlikely to become conditioned outside the laboratory, because they do not occur often enough with the US to result in an association. Learning under natural circumstances is likely only if the CS has a preexisting relation to the US. Recent studies of sexual conditioning have shown that in contrast to an arbitrary CS, an ecologically relevant CS is resistant to blocking, extinc- tion, and increases in the CS–US interval and results in sensitized responding and stronger second- order conditioning. Although the mechanisms of these effects are not fully understood, these findings have shown that signature learning phenomena are significantly altered when the kinds of stimuli that are likely to become conditioned under natural circumstances are used. The implications of these find- ings for an ecological approach to the study of learning are discussed.
... The two signal conditions that eliminated escape learning deficits and strong attenuation of situational fear (houselight termination following shock, and houselight onset preceding shock) provided a transition into darkness shortly before and/or during the postshock interval. Such changes may be particularly salient to a frightened rat (e.g., Allison, Larson, & Jensen, 1967;Seligman & Hager, 1972) and thus determine the fear-reducing capacity of the signal-shock relation. ...
... Others have noted that illumination cues have associative and nonassociative effects that differ from other types of stimuli (e.g, Linwick, Patterson, 6 Overmier, 1981;Sigmundi & Bolles, 1983;Sigmundi, Bouton, & Bolles, 1981). Seligman and Hager (1972) suggested that changes in illumination have special significance to rats in aversive situations. Rats may be biologically predisposed to associate darkness with safety, and light cues with danger. ...
The present experiments reveal that shuttle-escape performance deficits are eliminated when exteroceptive cues are paired with inescapable shock. Experiment 1 indicated that, as in instrumental control, a signal following inescapable shock eliminated later escape performance deficits. Subsequent experiments revealed that both forward and backward pairings between signals and inescapable shock attenuated performance deficits. However, the data also suggest that the impact of these temporal relations may be modulated by qualitative aspects of the cues because the effects of these relations depended upon whether an increase or decrease in illumination (Experiment 2) or a compound auditory cue (Experiment 4) was used. Preliminary evidence suggests that the ability of illumination cues to block escape learning deficits may be related to their ability to reduce contextual fear (Experiment 3). The implications of these data for conceptions of instrumental control and the role of fear in the etiology of effects of inescapable shock exposure are discussed.
... Garcia also greatly benefited from Rozin's attentions. By highlighting the Garcia phenomena at the University of Pennsylvania, Rozin brought the phenomena to the attention of only future investigators like Jeff Galef, as well as colleagues like Marty Seligman, who quickly jumped on the "constraints on learning" bandwagon with his concept of preparedness (Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972). Seligman has been a masterful popularizer throughout his career and helped make Garcia a household name. ...
This is an account of how I got started in my research on conditioning and learning. The essay was written in 2008 in response to an invitation from Anthony Riley who wanted to add personal stories to his web site on Conditioned Taste Aversion Research. The essay describes in considerable detail my contributions to the field of taste aversion learning. However, it also describes my early years in basic and applied behavior analysis and ends with comments on how my subsequent work on sexual conditioning is conceptually related to my earlier research on taste aversion learning. Taste aversion learning and sexual conditioning are both biologically relevant and involving ecologically relevant or “natural” learning procedures. The original essay is no longer available on that web site for which it was intended and therefore I have posted in on ResearchGate.
... Garcia also greatly benefited from Rozin's attentions. By highlighting the Garcia phenomena at the University of Pennsylvania, Rozin brought the phenomena to the attention of only future investigators like Jeff Galef, as well as colleagues like Marty Seligman, who quickly jumped on the "constraints on learning" bandwagon with his concept of preparedness (Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972). Seligman has been a masterful popularizer throughout his career and helped make Garcia a household name. ...
This is an account of how I got started in my research on conditioning and learning. The essay was written in 2008 in response to an invitation from Anthony Riley who wanted to add personal stories to his web site on Conditioned Taste Aversion Research. The essay describes in considerable detail my contributions to the field of taste aversion learning. However, it also describes my early years in basic and applied behavioral analysis and points out how my subsequent work on sexual conditioning is conceptually related to my earlier research on taste aversion learning. The original essay is no longer available on that web site for which it was intended and therefore I have posted in on ResearchGate.
... For instance, raccoons could be trained to drop wooden eggs down a chute, but in subsequent trials they became increasingly reluctant to do so and instead engaged in manipulative behaviors that interfered with completion of the task. Seligman (1970; see also Seligman & Hager, 1972) documented a biological preparedness to associate certain stimuli and responses, something that he attributed to the evolutionary history of the species. For instance, rats can readily learn to avoid electric shocks by running away and to produce food delivery by pressing a lever, but they have great difficulty learning to avoid an electric shock by pressing a lever. ...
... There is evidence that Garcia's work surfaced even prior to this, however. Sara Shettleworth, also an author included in Seligman and Hager's (1972) volume, and frequently cited alongside Garcia, notes that profound intellectual changes were beginning to take place during her first year in graduate school in the Psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, presumably 1966. 9 Shettleworth (2010) says: ...
The rejection of research results is sometimes thought to be justified in cases of individuals embracing fringe ideas that depart significantly from prevailing orthodoxy, or in cases of individuals who lack appropriate expertise or credentials. The case of John Garcia exhibits both of these dimensions, and illustrates that such rejection can delay scientific advancements. Garcia's work decisively challenged what was the orthodoxy in psychology in the midcentury: behaviorism. Behaviorist learning theorists suffered from theory-entrenchment insofar as they failed to acknowledge Garcia's anomalous research findings that ran counter to their theoretical expectations. The case study also illustrates that theories on the margins can become embraced as a result of advancements in adjacent research fields. Studying how Garcia's work moved from fringe to mainstream results in lessons for the philosophy of science and epistemology more generally. Only when we see the mechanisms of exclusion at work can we understand how science and other knowledge production systems can inadvertently act counterproductively via gatekeeping practices that filter out unorthodox points of view.
... However, the data showed that such conditioning was observed only to a threatening angry face but not to a friendly happy face. Thus, the results are consistent with the preparedness theory of conditioning (Seligman, 1970), which posits that evolutionarily prepared contingencies (such as that between threat and an aversive outcome) can be learned even when information about the contingency is severely degraded (Seligman & Hager, 1972). ...
The role of conscious awareness in human Pavlovian conditioning was examined in 2 experiments using masked fear-relevant (snakes and spiders; Experiments 1 and 2) and fear-irrelevant (flowers and mushrooms; Experiment 1) pictures as conditioned stimuli, a mild electric shock as the unconditioned stimulus, and skin conductance responses as the primary dependent variable. The conditioned stimuli were presented briefly (30 ms) and were effectively masked by an immediately following masking stimulus. Experiment 1 demonstrated nonconscious conditioning to fear-relevant but not to fear-irrelevant stimuli. Even though the participants could not recognize the stimuli in Experiment 2, they differentiated between masked stimuli predicting and not predicting shocks in expectancy ratings. However, expectancy ratings were not related to the conditioned autonomic response.
... Because red appears to be an important stimulus for mediating agonistic behavior in male threespine stickleback (Baerends, 1985;Rowland, 1994;Tinbergen, 1951), we hypothesized that, even in the absence of configurational cues, territorial males might be predisposed to associate a red signal more readily than a green signal with the appearance of a rival. Moreover, other researchers (see Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Seligman & Hager, 1972) have described numerous accounts of such nonequivalent associability or biases in learning. ...
The red coloration of male stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) possesses signal value in male–male interactions. Therefore, it was predicted that males would learn to associate a red signal more readily than a green signal with a conspecific rival in a Pavlovian conditioning experiment. Males were presented red and green signal lights where one signal was always paired with presentation of a rival (excitatory conditioned stimulus, CS+) and one signal was never paired with presentation of a rival (nonreinforced stimulus, CS−). Males learned the task rapidly, showing conditioned approach and zigzag responses, but CS+ vs. CS− differentiation persisted, even after a prolonged extinction period. In addition, there were no differences in learning rates between fish trained to the red signal as the CS+ and fish trained to the green signal as the CS+. The results suggest that, although males may rapidly learn about rivals, they are not predisposed to associate red (over green) with the appearance of a rival under the conditions of this experiment. Because males must establish and maintain territories in order to nest and mate, learning about neighboring rivals may be an adaptive mechanism by which males more effectively defend their territories and thereby increase their reproductive fitness.
... The idea that processes underlying learning are dependent on systems that support other more basic behavior has previously been suggested by ethologists. They have argued that an animal's ability to perform well on learning tasks is dependent on the existence of innate mechanisms that can be usefully applied to the task (Barker, Best, & Domjan, 1977;Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Tinbergen, 1951). Such a relation has also been acknowledged by early experimental psychologists (Krechevsky, 1938;Lashley, 1929). ...
A procedure was developed to study black versus white and horizontal versus vertical pattern visual discriminations in a swimming pool. The effects of central cholinergic muscarinic receptor blockade by atropine sulfate was then evaluated. The drug treatment impaired acquisition but not retention. Behavioral observations showed that the control rats used a number of strategies during the process of problem solving that facilitated acquisition of the discrimination. Through modifications of training procedures, the processes of strategy selection and discrimination learning were dissociated. Cholinergic blockade was found to impair strategy selection but not discrimination learning. The results question the widely held view that cholinergic systems are involved in learning and memory and suggest instead that cholinergic systems are involved in the selection of the movements or strategies that are prerequisite for learning.
... The results of the Cannon and Baker (1981) and Baker and Cannon (1979) research are consistent with a large body of animal literature which suggests that tasteillness associations are readily learned, whereas taste-shock associations are not (Garcia & Ervin, 1968;Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972), and they support recommendations that an emetic rather than shock be used as the UCS in alcohol aversion therapy (Wilson, 1978;Wilson & Davison, 1969). The greater associability of taste with malaise than with shock may explain earlier unsuccessful attempts to find psychophysiological evidence of alcohol aversions following shock aversion therapy (Hallam, Rach-man, & Falkowski, 1972;MacCulloch, Feldman, Orford, & MacCulloch, 1966). ...
Reports follow-up data for 20 male alcoholics who received either a multifaceted inpatient alcoholism treatment program alone (controls) or emetic or shock aversion therapy in addition to that program. Results indicate that emetic treatment exerted a modest beneficial effect at the 6-mo mark, but control and emetic Ss did not differ at the 12-mo mark. Both emetic and control Ss compiled more days of abstinence than shock Ss at both follow-up intervals. Analysis of the relationship between inpatient measures of the strength of alcohol aversions and posttreatment drinking revealed an inverse relationship between heart rate response to alcohol and number of days of drinking. (46 ref)
... These are revolutionary times for behavior scientists. At least three major lines of research -adjunctive behaviors (Falk, 1972), speciesspecific constraints on learning (Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Seligman & Hager, 1972), and sign tracking (Hearst & Jenkins, 1974;Schwartz & Gamzu, 1977)-have developed over the last decade in response to behavioral anomalies, with proponents of each noting the inconsistency of their subdiscipline with traditional theories of learning (cf. Bolles, 1976). ...
The presentation of an incentive generates a small amount of arousal that decays exponentially over time. If the time interval separating successive incentives is short enough, arousal cumulates to an equilibrium level that is predictable from decay constants derived from the presentation of isolated incentives. The accumulation of arousal accounts for the "excessive" nature of schedule-induced, or adjunctive, behaviors. (58 ref)
... These studies on the role of learning in the feeding system are representative of a broader trend toward a biologically based view of learning (Bolles, 1970;Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1973;Shettleworth, 1972; Boice, Note 1). Traditional theories of learning, which attempted to formulate generally applicable 218 laws of learning, are inadequate because they failed to take into consideration the tremendous diversity of selection pressures faced by the host of species. ...
A growing awareness of the biological context of learning and revelations of long-delay learning in the feeding system have stimulated psychologists' interests in the areas of poison avoidance and food aversion. However, relatively little attention has been given to the intimately related area of dietary self-selection. This review covers the literature on dietary selection from various fields including psychology, nutrition, physiology, and agriculture. It is organized methodologically along 2 lines: the method of diet presentation and the method of inducing a nutritional need. The bulk of the existing literature consists of demonstrations of dietary selection. Future studies should proceed beyond simple demonstration to elucidation of underlying mechanisms and factors effecting food selection by animals. Suggestions are made for research on dietary selection by psychologists from such areas as comparative, perceptual, and physiological psychology. (51/2 p ref)
... Conversely, tastes are easily associated with nausea and illness, whereas lights and tones are much less easily associated with nausea and illness. Numerous other examples of such selective associations are now available (see Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Seligman & Hager, 1972;and Shettleworth, 1973, for reviews). It is highly plausible that similar selectivity of associations exist in the conditioning of appetitive drive states. ...
Conducted 5 experiments with a total of 136 male Sprague-Dawley albino rats to determine whether the modality of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the index used for conditioned drive are important in demonstrating the conditioning of hunger, using natural deprivation as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Exps I-III provide some support for the hypothesis that appetitive drives such as hunger and thirst are not conditionable because of slow onset. This suggests that the dependent measures used in past experiments may not be valid. Exps IV-V suggest that changes in the rate of barpressing on an operant extinction curve following probe CSs for hunger may be a more sensitive and valid index of conditioned appetitive drive. Results indicate a need for a re-examination of the basic difference between appetitive and aversive drives, which lies in the mode of their onset and control and which, given adaptive considerations, can account for their widely different conditionability. (41 ref)
... A very basal form of associative learning quite similar to classical conditioning is conditioned taste aversion also known as the "Sauce Bearnaise syndrome. " The differences to classical conditioning are that usually a single presentation of the neutral stimulus is sufficient and that a considerable delay can be between the stimulus presentation and the unconditioned reaction e.g., associating a foul taste with Sauce Bearnaise due to feeling nausea hours after eating a Filet Mignon that was served with the sauce (Seligman and Hager, 1972;Stensmyr and Caron, 2020). ...
The mechanisms underlying the formation and retrieval of memories are still an active area of research and discussion. Manifold models have been proposed and refined over the years, with most assuming a dichotomy between memory processes involving non-conscious and conscious mechanisms. Despite our incomplete understanding of the underlying mechanisms, tests of memory and learning count among the most performed behavioral experiments. Here, we will discuss available protocols for testing learning and memory using the example of the most prevalent animal species in research, the laboratory mouse. A wide range of protocols has been developed in mice to test, e.g., object recognition, spatial learning, procedural memory, sequential problem solving, operant- and fear conditioning, and social recognition. Those assays are carried out with individual subjects in apparatuses such as arenas and mazes, which allow for a high degree of standardization across laboratories and straightforward data interpretation but are not without caveats and limitations. In animal research, there is growing concern about the translatability of study results and animal welfare, leading to novel approaches beyond established protocols. Here, we present some of the more recent developments and more advanced concepts in learning and memory testing, such as multi-step sequential lockboxes, assays involving groups of animals, as well as home cage-based assays supported by automated tracking solutions; and weight their potential and limitations against those of established paradigms. Shifting the focus of learning tests from the classical experimental chamber to settings which are more natural for rodents comes with a new set of challenges for behavioral researchers, but also offers the opportunity to understand memory formation and retrieval in a more conclusive way than has been attainable with conventional test protocols. We predict and embrace an increase in studies relying on methods involving a higher degree of automatization, more naturalistic- and home cage-based experimental setting as well as more integrated learning tasks in the future. We are confident these trends are suited to alleviate the burden on animal subjects and improve study designs in memory research.
... Overspecialization (Gould, 1982;Kuris & Norton, 1985) occurs when a trait is selectively advantageous to an individual but disadvantageous to its group, and therefore involves a conflict between two sets of contingencies. Incompatibilities between the concurrent products of selection is a ubiquitous feature of selective systems (Breland & Breland, 1961;Domjan & Galef, 1983;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Skinner, 1977;Stahlman & Leising, 2018). In the most extreme cases, short-term selective contingencies can lead in the long term to extinction of the species (Matsuda & Abrams, 1994;Nonaka et al., 2013;Parvinen, 2005;Rankin et al., 2011;Rankin & L opez-Sepulcre, 2005;Webb, 2003;see Jablonski, 2008). ...
Rachlin's interpretations of self‐control depend on the short‐term versus the long‐term consequences of behavior. Sometimes these effects support each other (typing an abstract produces a written product now and is later read by others). Sometimes they conflict (procrastination now is incompatible with finishing the abstract by deadline). We usually reserve the language of self‐control for human cases where long‐term consequences are chosen over short‐term ones. Rachlin made this distinction salient in ontogeny, but it also applies to selection in phylogeny (Darwinian evolution) and sociogeny (behavior passed from one organism to another). Our account examines relations between short‐term and long‐term consequences at each level of selection. For example, sexual selection has adaptive, short‐term mating consequences but may drive species to extreme specializations that jeopardize long‐term survival. In sociogeny, as in the Tragedy of the Commons, group members may get immediate economic benefits from exploiting resources but exhaust those resources over the long term. Whatever the level, when short‐term and long‐term consequences have opposing effects, adaptive behavior may depend on whether temporally extended contingencies exert more control than more immediate benefits.
... The general process view of learning was seriously called into question in the early 1970s by a number of books and review articles that highlighted various findings that appeared to challenge the generality of classical and instrumental conditioning (Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Shettleworth, 1972). These findings included the failure of positive reinforcement to increase the behavior of depositing a token into a slot (Breland & Breland, 1961), the ineffectiveness of punishment in suppressing certain types of responses (Walters & Glazer, 1971), limitations on the conditioning of various avoidance responses (Bolles, 1970), and selective associations in aversion learning (Garica & Koelling, 1966). ...
... The view proposed by Greenberg was supported by studies by Lu et al, 21 Quirin et al, 22 Wang and Liu, 23 Simpson et al, 24 Packard and McGaugh, 25 Schwartz et al, 26 and Seligman and Hager. 27 The results of functional magnetic resonance imaging technology strongly support this idea, showing that MS produces an unconscious and imperceptible emotion related to fear and anxiety. ...
Purpose
This study explored the relationship between emotion and death-thought accessibility (DTA) in individuals experiencing true mortality salience (MS), specifically, patients with cancer.
Patients and Methods
The study included 255 participants; among them, 132 patients had cancer and represented the MS group, and 123 had dental pain and served as a control group. Participants completed the Projective Diseases Attitude Assessment Questionnaire to induce priming, completed an affect scale, completed one of four calculation tasks as manipulation of cognitive load (all four were done over several sessions), and performed a Pinyin-Chinese characters exercise to measure DTA.
Results
MS was associated with strong negative emotional arousal. When these negative emotions are generated, they enter an individual’s consciousness and activate proximal defense mechanisms. At this point, DTA can be measured. Patients with cancer had significantly higher levels of DTA in the high-frequency cognitive load condition than in the other three conditions (no task, simple delay task, and single cognitive load task). Patients with dental pain had significantly higher levels of DTA in the no task and simple delay conditions than in the single cognitive load or high-frequency cognitive load conditions. This study also found that negative experiences without MS (specifically, dental pain) are associated with higher levels of DTA.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that in addition to death-related events, both negative and stress-inducing events can produce DTA.
... Por el contrario, son muy hábiles en evitar una descarga eléctrica pateando un pedal, aunque muy torpes en conseguir alimentos realizando esta misma conducta (Lolordo, 1979). En un sentido más general, Seligman & Hager (1972) han sugerido que, como una función propia de cada especie, existen determinadas predisposiciones que facilitan la adquisición de algunos tipos de tareas y dificultan el aprendizaje de otras. ...
La conducta tiende generalmente a ser funcional. A menudo, algunas conductas desadaptativas específicas pueden entenderse en términos de contingencias de reforzamiento prevalentes que son opuestas a las contingencias de reforzamiento previamente experimentadas por el individuo o por los ancestros de ese individuo, y que tienen una persistente influencia sobre su conducta. Cuando un individuo se enfrenta a una revocación de las contingencias de reforzamiento que resulta en una conducta disfuncional, la terapia debe oponerse a la información previa para que sea posible desarrollar una conducta apropiada. Cuando un cambio en las contingencias de reforzamiento tiene lugar en contradicción a una predisposición genética hacia patrones de respuesta que evolucionaban como resultado de la evolución natural y de contingencias de reforzamiento, las terapias deben centrarse en circunvenir la predisposición genética a responder de una manera que actualmente es desadaptativa. Usando ejemplos provenientes del laboratorio animal, se revisan varios casos de conductas disfuncionales que surgen de cambios en las contingencias de reforzamiento.
... Naturalistic learning paradigms often predict that conditioning phenomena would be more readily available with ecologically-relevant events compared to their ecologicallyirrelevant counterparts (e.g., Domjan, 2005Domjan, , 2008Domjan, Cusato, & Krause, 2004;Domjan & Galef 1983;Fanselow & Lester, 1988;Garcia, Hankins, & Rusiniak, 1974;Hollis, 1982Hollis, , 1997Öhman & Mineka, 2001;Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Shettleworth, 1998;Timberlake, 1983). Indeed, Domjan's (1994Domjan's ( , 2000 research program on an animal model of sexual conditioning in Japanese quail provided further insights into the ecological relevance of learning. ...
Various studies demonstrated that extinction training taking place shortly after the activation of the acquired fear could weaken the conditioned fear. The procedure is called post-retrieval extinction (PRE). However, from the time it emerged, it has suffered from inconsistencies in the ability of researchers to replicate the seemingly established effects. Extant literature implies that conditioned fear might be differentially sensitive to the nature of conditioned stimuli (CS) used. The aim of the present study, therefore, is threefold. First, we aimed to replicate Schiller et al. (Nature, 463, 49–53. 2010) procedure in which the PRE had produced positive results with arbitrary CSs only. Also, we examined the PRE as a function of CS type (ecological-fear-relevant (images of spider and snake) vs. arbitrary (images of yellow and blue circles)). Finally, we aimed to investigate the long-term effects of the PRE (i.e., 24 h, 15 d, and 3 mo). The study consisted of acquisition, re-activation and extinction, and re-extinction phases. Dependent measure was the recovery of fear responses as indexed by the skin conductance responses (SCRs) and arousal ratings of the participants at the last trial of the extinction and the first trial of the re-extinction. All groups showed significant acquisition and extinction patterns, compared to the other two groups (i.e., 6 h after the activating CS and without an activating stimulus) only the group that undertook extinction trials 10 min after the activating CS showed a sustained extinction. Thus, our findings provided further evidence for the robustness of the PRE paradigm in preventing the recovery of extinguished fears behaviorally, both with ecological and arbitrary stimuli.
... 8 Theories of fear acquisition in early childhood and beyond have historically focused on conditioning: "neutral stimuli which are associated with a fear or pain-producing state of affairs develop fearful qual-ities…the strength of the fear is determined by the number of repetitions of the association between the pain/fear experience and the stimuli, and also by the intensity of the fear or pain experienced in the presence of the stimuli" (Rachman, 1977, p. 376). On this theory, fear responses are akin to the development of food aversions (Garcia and Koelling 1966;Seligman and Hager 1972). Like food aversions can develop when a certain food is associated with an illness (e.g., if you ate a hamburger around the time you once had food poisoning, you may come to be averse to hamburgers forever after), when certain stimuli become associated with a fearful state of affairs, a person may come to be afraid of those things. ...
In this article, I consider how fear in contexts of crisis shapes and is shaped by agents’ relationships. I survey a number of approaches to understanding fearing at the intersection of empirical psychology and philosophy, highlighting the extent to which interpersonal relationships are positioned as involved in processes of fearing, and establish what I take to insufficient attention paid by these approaches to the ways interpersonal relations shape the emotions we come to have. Contexts of acute crisis and uncertainty can involve rapidly adjusting practices of fearing in response to other agents, both those we trust and those we do not. I call for the development of a model of ‘relational calibration’ for understanding the complex interpersonal dynamics of fearing during crises, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
... En efecto, algunas investigaciones realizadas a principios de los años setenta mostraron la facilidad con la que se puede condicionar a las personas para que teman ciertos objetos, como las arañas, y la dificultad de condicionarlas para que tengan miedo de otros objetos más neutrales o menos amenazantes, como las flores, los enchufes eléctricos o los coches. Seligman identificó en los seres vivos lo que ahora se conoce como preparación biológica para el aprendizaje (Seligman & Hager, 1972). ...
RESUMEN Martin Seligman y sus colegas, al poner en el centro de la psicología positiva temas como "los motivos de la acción" y "el papel de las emociones", parecen haber desarrollado su propuesta en lo que se puede considerar un cierto vacío teórico dejado por la psicología cognitiva del siglo XX. Ampliando el campo de observación y análisis, surgen nuevas preguntas: ¿Qué ocurre con relación a las principales corrientes de la psicología estadounidense del siglo XX? ¿Dónde se sitúa su propuesta teórica? Este artículo exploratorio se propone caracterizar la psicología positiva desde el punto de vista fundacional y teórico-situándola dentro de la historia de la psicología estadounidense-y busca, a la vez, identificar algunos elementos que pueden contribuir a la eventual relevancia de su aporte teórico a la psicología con-temporánea. Se quiere evidenciar que no se comprende el punto de inflexión que esta puede haber alcanzado dentro de la psicología estadounidense si no se consideran ciertos antecedentes teóricos que precedieron a su nacimiento y el "giro epistemológico" que Seligman y colegas han propuesto a partir de la reintroducción de un telos no metafísico para explicar el dinamismo presente en la acción de los seres humanos y de algunos animales superiores.
... American comparative psychology, long focused on rats, pigeons, and humans, reacted to ethology's concept of species-specific innate behavior in welcoming (Beach, 1950) and critical ways (Lehrman, 1953). The idea of biological preparedness for and constraints on learning resolved fruitless disputes (Garcia et al., 1972(Garcia et al., , 1989Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Seligman & Hager, 1972). As Gottlieb wrote, "genetic activity by itself does not produce finished traits" (Gottlieb, 1991:5), but it canalizes development (Waddington, 1942). ...
Tinbergen’s classic “On Aims and Methods of Ethology” (Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20, 1963) proposed four levels of explanation of behavior, which he thought would soon apply to humans. This paper discusses the need for multilevel explanation; Huxley and Mayr’s prior models, and others that followed; Tinbergen’s differences with Lorenz on “the innate”; and Mayr’s ultimate/proximate distinction. It synthesizes these approaches with nine levels of explanation in three categories: phylogeny, natural selection, and genomics (ultimate causes); maturation, sensitive period effects, and routine environmental effects (intermediate causes); and hormonal/metabolic processes, neural circuitry, and eliciting stimuli (proximate causes), as a respectful extension of Tinbergen’s levels. The proposed classification supports and builds on Tinbergen’s multilevel model and Mayr’s ultimate/proximate continuum, adding intermediate causes in accord with Tinbergen’s emphasis on ontogeny. It requires no modification of Standard Evolutionary Theory or The Modern Synthesis, but shows that much that critics claim was missing was in fact part of Neo-Darwinian theory (so named by J. Mark Baldwin in The American Naturalist in 1896) all along, notably reciprocal causation in ontogeny, niche construction, cultural evolution, and multilevel selection. Updates of classical examples in ethology are offered at each of the nine levels, including the neuroethological and genomic findings Tinbergen foresaw. Finally, human examples are supplied at each level, fulfilling his hope of human applications as part of the biology of behavior. This broad ethological framework empowers us to explain human behavior—eventually completely—and vindicates the idea of human nature, and of humans as a part of nature.
... Some types of information are more easily learned than others; for example, rats may associate food types with nausea but not noises (Garcia and Koelling 1966). People learn to fear snakes and spiders more easily than electrical plugs (Seligman and Hager 1972). Similarly, people seem prepared to learn some internet-related behaviours more than others. ...
The application of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms is improving everyday tasks worldwide. But while the internet has transformational benefits, it also has its severe drawbacks. Internet infrastructure is extremely expensive and requires large private investment. To profit while giving free access has necessitated the presentation of personalized advertisements. Psychology-based strategies are employed to keep users perpetually engaged, often using emotional or aggressive stimuli that attract attention. Users’ responses and personal data are harvested from multiple sources and analysed through complex statistical algorithms. When hundreds of variables are collected on a person, personality traits, expense patterns, or political beliefs become fairly predictable. This happens because human cognition and emotions evolved for survival in Palaeolithic environments, and certain features are universal. Technology companies sell behaviour prediction models to anyone willing to pay. According to client purposes, users can be prodded to spend money or adopt politically motivated beliefs. Furthermore, smartphone beacons and face recognition technology make it possible to track political activists as well as criminals. Through the use of AI, therefore, tech corporations “design minds” to act as directed and socially engineer societies. Large ethical issues arise, that include privacy concerns, prediction errors, and the empowerment of transnational corporations to profit from directed human activities. As AI becomes part of everyday lives, the internet that intended to bring universal knowledge to the world is unwittingly throwing us back into the Palaeolithic era. Now more than ever, humans ought to become more peaceful and content rather than be driven by ever-increasing emotion-driven contests. This chapter discusses these important issues with the direct or indirect actions that need to be taken to maintain sustainable consumption, world peace, and democratic regimes.
... Retarded learning due to biological constraints is a well-known phenomenon in animal learning. It appears specifically where certain responses are very difficult or impossible for animals to learnusually those which lie outside or are in conflict with the animals' natural responses (Krause, 2015;LoLordo, 1979;Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Shettleworth, 2009). Rats, for example, can easily form an association between a taste and a subsequent gastric illness (taste aversion) while they fail to associate audiovisual cues with gastric illness or a taste with subsequent electroshocks (Garcia & Koelling, 1966;Wilcoxon et al., 1971). ...
Learning allows animals to respond to changes in their environment within their lifespan. However, many responses to the environment are innate, and need not be learned. Depending on the level of cognitive flexibility an animal shows, such responses can either be modified by learning or not. Many ants deposit pheromone trails to resources, and innately follow such trails. Here, we investigated cognitive flexibility in the ant Lasius niger by asking whether ants can overcome their innate tendency and learn to avoid conspecific pheromone trails when these predict a negative stimulus. Ants were allowed to repeatedly visit a Y-maze, one arm of which was marked with a strong but realistic pheromone trail and led to a punishment (electroshock and/or quinine solution), and the other arm of which was unmarked and led to a 1 M sucrose reward. After circa 10 trials ants stopped relying on the pheromone trail, but even after 25 exposures they failed to improve beyond chance levels. However, the ants did not choose randomly: rather, most ants begun to favour just one side of the Y-maze, a strategy which resulted in more efficient food retrieval over time, when compared to the first visits. Even when trained in a go/no-go paradigm which precludes side bias development, ants failed to learn to avoid a pheromone trail. These results show rapid learning flexibility towards an innate social signal, but also demonstrate a rarely seen hard limit to this flexibility.
... Foree & LoLordo, 1973). Instances of behavior that contradict general-process conceptions of learning have been in the past referred to as misbehavior, selective associations, biological constraints, or adaptive specializations in learning (Breland & Breland, 1961;Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Shettleworth, 1972; see also, Krause, 2015 for further discussion on selective associations). Rather than relinquishing claims of generality (or embracing ethological explanations for these findings), traditional learning theorists choose to consider these results as exceptions to otherwise universal principles of learning. ...
The traditional learning view involves the general process theory of learning that focuses on identifying universal principles that apply to all species capable of learning from experience, and that operate across a wide variety of situations. Examples of behavior that contradict general-process conceptions of learning have been in the past referred to as “biological constraints”. Traditional learning theorists choose to consider these examples as exceptions to otherwise universal principles of learning. On the contrary, the typical ethologist is more likely to be concerned with how specific behaviors may have evolved and in an animal’s species typical responses to stimuli they are likely to encounter in their natural environment. However, they also fail to embrace animal learning phenomena that occurs in the laboratory into their theoretical framework. Behavior systems represent an alternative to this view by providing a link between traditional views of learning and ethology. They conceptualize experiential learning not as a set of universal principles, butas species typical processes that reflect the specific demands of the ecological niche in which the species evolved. The current paper reviews and brings-to-date Domjan’s formulation of a sexual behavior system in male Japanese quail. The system includes a stimulus dimension consisting of species typical cues, local cues, and contextual cues, and a response dimension consisting of general search, focal search, and copulatory behavior. Domjan’sformulation includes two diagrams that include symbols that represent unconditioned and conditioned effects within the system. Our modification of the system focuses on additional and up-to-date conditioned effects. In general, adding conditioning to the system increases potential stimulus and response variation, thereby increasing the flexibility of the system as it has evolved as a result of continued observation and experimentation.
... Cette diminution traduit donc une AGC qui peut perdurer jusqu'à plusieurs mois après l'acquisition. Ce type d'apprentissage porta un temps le nom de « Sauce-béarnaise syndrôme » (Seligman et Hager, 1972). Si des chocs électriques sur les pattes de l'animal sont utilisés comme SI à la place de l'intoxication aucune AGC ne se développe indiquant une « prédisposition » à l'association des stimuli intéroceptifs : le goût et le message viscéral douloureux (Garcia et al., 1968). ...
... Prepared associations can be characterized by three aspects: faster learning, acquisition of a larger response, and enhanced resistance to extinction. It is also claimed that such associations are less cognitive and mediated by evolutionary old brain structures (Seligman & Hager, 1972). Importantly, to call an association prepared, we should be able to observe superior conditioning with certain stimulus combinations that cannot be explained purely by the salience of the stimuli (Öhman & Mineka, 2001). ...
We investigate two questions, (1) the relevance of memory for evaluative conditioning (EC) effects based on smell-taste pairings, and (2) the potential preparedness of smell-taste combinations for yielding EC effects. The relevance of memory for EC effects is a subject of intense research. The majority of studies that investigate the memory-EC relation use visual stimuli and typically show no or relatively small EC effects without memory. For smell-taste combinations, only a few studies exist, with mixed results regarding the role of memory in EC. The idea that there might be a preparedness of smell and taste pairings comes from classical conditioning studies showing preparedness in food aversion and from research on joint processing of smells and tastes. In Experiment 1, we report a conceptual replication of previous studies with smell-taste and picture-taste pairings. In this experiment, we found no evidence for memory-independent EC overall. In a pre-registered Experiment 2, we used a design with smells, pictures, tastes, and sounds to test the role of memory more conclusively and test the preparedness hypothesis for smell-taste pairings. The results support the preparedness hypothesis for smell-taste pairings in EC. Furthermore, as in Experiment 1, we did not find evidence for memory-independent EC.
... An alternative hypothesis is that the insensitivity of Subtype 2 ASIB may not be specific to that response class but instead a generalized response tendency, which is defined as an organism-specific predisposition to respond in a similar manner across response classes (also called "transituational responding, " Schwartz, 1974; and related to the concept of organism "preparedness" to respond, Seligman & Hager, 1972). Said another way, individuals with Subtype 2 ASIB may display insensitivity across many response classes (maintained by both automatic and social reinforcers). ...
Automatically reinforced Subtype 2 self-injurious behavior (ASIB) has been characterized as showing insensitivity to competing reinforcement contingencies in the contexts of both functional analyses and in treatment using reinforcement alone (Hagopian, Rooker, &Yenokyan, 2018). One question is whether this insensitivity is specific to Subtype 2 ASIB as response class in these contexts or whether it is represents a generalized response tendency of the individual that is evident across other response classes. To examine this question, we compared responding on a single-operant task under changing reinforcement schedules for three individuals with Subtype 2 ASIB, relative to a comparison group of three individuals with socially reinforced SIB (which is characterized by sensitivity to changes in reinforcement contingencies). As hypothesized, all individuals showed sensitivity to changes in contingencies. These results provide preliminary support that the insensitivity of Subtype 2 ASIB is a property specific to that response class in these contexts rather than a generalized response tendency of the individual.
... What the message of Garcia essentially revolves around is probably best illustrated with an anecdote recounted by Seligman (Seligman & Hager, 1972). After he was served "filet mignon with béarnaise sauce" during a dinner, he became unwell at night. ...
This manuscript is part of a special issue to commemorate professor Paul Eelen, who passed away on August 21, 2016. Paul was a clinically oriented scientist, for whom learning principles (Pavlovian or operant) were more than salivary responses and lever presses. His expertise in learning psychology and his enthusiasm to translate this knowledge to clinical practice inspired many inside and outside academia. Several of his original writings were in the Dutch language. Instead of editing a special issue with contributions of colleagues and friends, we decided to translate a selection of his manuscripts to English to allow wide access to his original insights and opinions. Even though the manuscripts were written more than two decades ago, their content is surprisingly contemporary. The present manuscript was originally published as part of a Liber Amicorum for Paul Eelen’s own supervisor, prof. Joseph Nuttin. In this chapter, Paul Eelen presents a modern view on Pavlovian learning. It appeared in 1980, at the heyday of cognitive psychology which initially dismissed conditioning. Paul Eelen’s perseverance in presenting learning principles as key to study human behaviour has proven correct and ahead of time.
First published as: Eelen, P. (1980). Klassieke conditionering: Klassiek en toch modern. In Liber Amicorum, Prof. J. R. Nuttin, Gedrag, dynamische relatie en betekeniswereld (pp. 321–343). Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven.
... For example, one route this could take would be to examine how, rather than think of personality and behavioral developments as purely due to socialization, the human brain has evolved to become prepared to internalize and use specific information in particular ways (Garcia and Koelling, 1966;Seligman, 1971Seligman, , 1993Seligman and Hager, 1972). One example which makes this particularly salient is our innate aversion to snakes. ...
In this paper, we argue that despite the growing acceptance of psychological research by mainstream sociologists, the discipline of sociology remains largely averse to biology. This is because the kind of psychological research that sociologists now utilize tends to rely on the same assumptions of thought, action, and human behavior—broadly construed—that sociologists have on the whole tacitly endorsed since Durkheim's seminal criticism of Kantian categories in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Namely, that fundamental categories of perception, though naturally experienced, are socially constructed. This assumption is present in both psychological work on schemas and the dual-process model, which continue to be incorporated into sociological analysis at a growing pace. We further demonstrate how sociologists' overall positive reception of this kind of psychological research was facilitated by two factors: the rejection of biological explanations of human behavior and the tacit commitment to social causes by many sociologists in the field throughout the twentieth century. We demonstrate how synthesizing biological research with sociological research can extend existing sociological work by focusing on the study of parenting and crime and deviance. In these subfields, we believe sociologists can gain better understanding of their topics by moving from relatively proximate concerns to more distal ones. We conclude by asserting that seeing individuals' decision-making styles and capacities as a product of both evolved and social processes can lead to the development of more robust and yet parsimonious models of action in the discipline. Doing so need not make sociologists blindly endorse evolutionary approaches to human behavior, but start our theories with a view to both long and short history.
... The so-called Garcia effect initiated a branch of literature in the 1960s and 1970s known as the Biological Constraints movement. Members of this movement argued that examples like the Garcia Effect demonstrated an innate, evolved ''preparedness'' for some pairings over others (Seligman 1970;Seligman and Hager 1972). This implicates a content-sensitive process in learning, while still producing a spreading activation thinking process. ...
Some thoughts just come to mind together. This is usually thought to happen because they are connected by associations, which the mind follows. Such an explanation assumes that there is a particular kind of simple psychological process responsible. This view has encountered criticism recently. In response, this paper aims to characterize a general understanding of associative simplicity, which might support the distinction between associative processing and alternatives. I argue that there are two kinds of simplicity that are treated as characteristic of association, and as a result three possible versions of associative processing. This provides a framework that informs our understanding of association as a current and historical concept, including how various specific versions in different parts of psychology relate to one another. This framework can also guide debates over normative evaluations of actions produced by processes thought to be associative.
... The general process view of learning was seriously called into question in the early 1970s by a number of books and review articles that highlighted various findings that appeared to challenge the generality of classical and instrumental conditioning (Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde, 1973;Rozin & Kalat, 1971;Seligman, 1970;Seligman & Hager, 1972;Shettleworth, 1972). These findings included the failure of positive reinforcement to increase the behavior of depositing a token into a slot (Breland & Breland, 1961), the ineffectiveness of punishment in suppressing certain types of responses (Walters & Glazer, 1971), limitations on the conditioning of various avoidance responses (Bolles, 1970), and selective associations in aversion learning (Garica & Koelling, 1966). ...
Traditionally, general theories of learning have focused on associative and other mechanisms that are responsible for conditioned behavior without seriously considering how those mechanisms might vary depending on the stimulus being learned about and the response that provides evidence of learning. Recent studies of sexual conditioning in male
domesticated quail have revealed both quantitative and qualitative variations in the functional properties of conditioned behavior depending on the response that is measured and the events or objects that serve as conditioned stimuli. For example, sexually conditioned sign tracking behavior is directly related to the ratio between context exposure (C) and trial duration (T) in a conditioning procedure, but sexually conditioned goal tracking is inversely related to the C/T ratio. Other studies have shown that conditioned stimuli that
include limited cues from a female quail support different forms of sexually conditioned
behavior than conditioned stimuli that lack female features. Furthermore, these various
conditioned responses are differentially sensitive to extinction and reinforcer devaluation.
The implications of these findings for general process learning theory are discussed.
Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0b69j9v1
... Thus, the studies by John Garcia and colleagues and the theoretical work by Martin Seligman (see Seligman & Hager, 1972) laid the foundation for a new project headed by Arne € Ohman where Mats Fredrikson and I became the first PhD-students on the project. Arne took on the challenge to experimentally test some of the basic assumptions in Seligman's theory, in particular the non-random associations between the CS and UCS, and the resistance to extinction. ...
In this article I have summarized some of the main trends and topics of my research career, spanning a time period of 50 years, from its start as a master student at the Department of Psychology, University of Uppsala, Sweden to seeing the end of a long career, now at the University of Bergen, Norway. This journey has, apart from having been a journey across various disciplines and topics in experimental psychology, psychophysiology and neuropsychology, functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience, also been a social class journey for me personally. I describe my academic career from my arrival as a young student at the University of Uppsala, Sweden in the late 1960s to my graduation as PhD in 1977 at the age of 29 years, brief postdoc period at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and finally professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. The article focuses on my view of the research and research findings during these years, including studies of hemispheric asymmetry, dyslexia and language, dichotic listening, fMRI, and during the last years, studies of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. I have collaborated with numerous people, both nationally and internationally over the years, far too many to mention in a space-limited overview article. I apologize for this, and wish that I had time and space to mention all the fantastic colleagues and friends that I have met during my career. This article is what I recall of dates, places, encounters, etc., and any errors and misunderstandings are entirely due to my far from perfect memory, for which I also apologize.
... It is especially common for animals to be influenced by the dominant sensory modes in which they function. This particular bias is often termed modal specificity, modal asymmetry, or nonequipotentiality (D'Amato, 1973;Herman, 1980;Seligman & Hager, 1972). For example, monkeys have been known to solve visual problems with more accuracy than auditory problems, and dolphins have been known to do the reverse, despite each having well-developed capacities in both domains (D'Amato & Salmon, 1982;Herman, 1980;Herman et al., 1989;Oden et al., 1988). ...
Concept learning is considered to be a higher-order cognitive operation. In vertebrates, this is thought to require the cortex, imposing a form of executive control on less complex learning processes. The capacity of non-human animals to learn concepts is most commonly assessed with matching to sample (MTS) tasks. In these tests, animals must match two items based on their similarity. If an animal can learn this task and successfully transfer this learning to novel items, it is taken as evidence that they can learn the abstract concepts of 'sameness' or 'difference'. This criterion has been used to demonstrate abstract concept learning in the invertebrate honey bee. With no cortex, and a relatively tiny brain to that of vertebrates, how might the bee solve a conceptual problem? To explore this, I examined how bees learned an appetitive, rewarded MTS task, and a new visual aversive MTS task using shock as a punishment. Bees were more likely to make correct choices than incorrect choices in the appetitive MTS task. In the aversive task, bees rapidly learned a simple association of shock and colour, but did not demonstrate learning of the aversive MTS protocol. Rather, they simply learned to avoid shocks paired with blue. In all assays and experiments, results were heavily biased toward learning when blue stimuli were the conditioned stimulus rather than yellow. The data suggest bees are predisposed toward using stimulus based strategies to solve the task, rather than an abstract rule. This outcome is supportive of a recent model of concept learning in bees, using the known architecture of the bee brain. The model proposes that concept learning in MTS tasks can be achieved by a learning process that alters the weighting of interacting neural pathways which code stimulus identity and stimulus intensity on behavioural response. I argue that in the honey bee, stimulus-dependent properties and abstract concepts are learned by the same circuit. In this way, the bee brain could solve a MTS task without requiring a concept-learning mechanism, challenging the traditional distinction between higher-order and lower-order processes.
... "The implication from the point of view of Lorenz is that the phenomena of learning per se are just the tip of the iceberg." (Schwartz, 1974, p. 195) Criticisms like those made by Frank Beach led to a movement whose production was organized in two books: Constraints on Learning, edited by English ethologist Robert Hinde (1970), and Biological Boundaries on Learning, edited by American experimental psychologist Martin Seligman (1972). We can say that this movement marked a return invitation to nature (Schwartz, 1974), questioning the premise of equipotentiality and reflection about specialized learning skills that may have evolved to deal with special circumstances that the animals found in their natural habitat (Domjan & Galef, 1983;Bussab & Ribeiro, 1998). ...
... Behavioral/learning theory models of fear acquisition, maintenance, and treatment have historically held a transdiagnostic framework in that any unconditioned stimulus (UCS) paired with a fearevoking conditioned stimulus (CS) could elicit a conditioned fear response (CR), often referred to as the equipotentiality premise (see Seligman & Hager, 1972). Indeed, models of fear acquisition and maintenance based on classical conditioning (e.g., Watson & Rayner, 1920) and the combination of classical and operant conditioning principals (e.g., Mowrer, 1947), have traditionally minimized the inherent qualities of the stimulus and emphasized the associative relationships with the reinforcing elements. ...
Fundamentals of Cognitive Science draws on research from psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, linguistics, evolution, and neuroscience to provide an engaging and student-friendly introduction to this interdisciplinary field. While structured around traditional cognitive psychology topics, from attention, learning theory, and memory to information processing, thinking, and decision making, the book also looks at neural networks, cognitive neuroscience, embodied cognition, and magic to illustrate cognitive science principles. The book is organized around the history of thinking about the mind and its relation to the world. It considers the evolution of cognition and how it demonstrates how our current thinking about cognitive processes is derived from pre-scientific philosophies and common sense, through psychologists' empirical inquiries into mind and behavior as they pursued a science of cognition and the construction of artificial intelligences. The architectures of cognition are also applied throughout, and the book proposes a synthesis of them, from traditional symbol system architectures to recent work in embodied cognition and Bayesian predictive processing. Practical and policy implications are also considered but solutions are left for the readers to determine. Using extended case studies to address the most important themes, ideas, and findings, this book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology and related fields. It is also suitable for general readers interested in an accessible treatment of cognitive science and its practical implications.
Research concerned with visual dominance in appetitive and auditory dominance in aversive learning situations (selective associations) is reviewed. The present analysis stresses that the dominant sensory modality of stimulus control is determined by the relative affective valence acquired by a compound auditory-visual stimulus through reinforcement contingencies, rather than by whether the primary reinforcer is appetitive or aversive. For example, take two groups of rats or pigeons on exactly the same shock-avoidance contingency in a tone-light compound (TL), but with different contingencies when the compound is absent (TL). Responding came predominantly under (1) auditory control when conditions in TL were hedonically negative relative to those in (TL), and (2) visual control when conditions in (TL) made TL relatively positive. Selective associations here are a product of the relative hedonic state, positive or negative, established to the auditory-visual compound. Therefore, this constraint reflects a high level of functioning by a hedonic comparator -- with TL’s hedonic value contextually determined by the totality of the events encountered, and reinforcement contingencies, operating in its world. The physical particulars of the reinforcer in TL here, shock avoidance, clearly were not responsible for the hedonic psychological state TL produced. Weiss, Panlilio, and Schindler (1993a, 1993b) went on to show that these proclivities can be (1) reversed, and (2) overcome by a blocking design when the biologically-contingency-disadvantaged stimulus is first pretrained on its own. Relating the “hedonic model” to evolution is speculative. But, the hedonic model is scientifically integrative by relating this biological constraint to a variety of phenomena that involve incentive-motivational states. These include choice behavior, conditioned preference, behavioral contrast and appetitive-aversive interactions.
Stimuli that provide information about likely future reinforcers tend to shift behavior, provided a reliable relation between the stimulus and the reinforcer can be discriminated. Stimuli that are apparently more reliable exert greater control over behavior. We asked how the subjective value (measured in terms of preference) of reinforcers associated with stimuli influences stimulus control. Five pigeons worked on a concurrent chains procedure in which half of all trials ended in a smaller reinforcer sooner, and the other half in a larger reinforcer later. In Signaled trials, the color and flash duration on the keys in the initial link signaled the outcome of the trial. In Conflicting probe trials, the color and the flash duration signaled conflicting information about the outcome of the trial. Choice in Signaled trials shifted toward the signaled outcome, but was never exclusive. In Conflicting probe trials, control was divided idiosyncratically between the 2 stimulus dimensions, but still favored the outcome with the higher subjective value. Thus, stimulus control depends not only on the perceived reliability of stimuli, but also on the subjective value of the outcome.
In diesem Kapitel werden verhaltenstheoretische Erklärungen für das Lernen vorgestellt. Dazu zählen das klassische Konditionieren, das operante Konditionieren und in Ansätzen auch das Beobachtungslernen. Es werden die Phasen und Eigenschaften der Lernmodelle erläutert, die Anwendungsmöglichkeiten in Schule und Unterricht aufgezeigt sowie die Unterschiede und Defizite der Ansätze verdeutlicht.
This study investigated the impact of communication apprehension and intelligence on achievement, as well as the relationships among these variables. Two hypotheses were tested and one research question was explored. Hypothesis 1, which predicted that levels of communication apprehension and intelligence were linearly related, was confirmed. Hypothesis 2, which predicted that low communication apprehensives would exhibit significantly higher IQ scores than moderate and high communication apprehensives, was also confirmed. Exploration of the research question netted findings contrary to much of the previous research concerning communication apprehension and achievement.
Classical arguments for and against the circularity of the law of effect are reviewed. Demonstrations are made in some detail that the law is circular neither by definition nor by proof. The trans-situationality criterion of MeehPs (1950) “Weak Law of Effect” is evaluated. It is argued that trans-situationality has no crucial bearing on the circularity issue, and that it is only one of many criteria warranting reference to the law of effect as a covering law. Arguments that explanations by reference to covering laws are by their nature circular do not speak to the law of effect as such; rather, they are general critiques of the nature of scientific explanation.
Consideration of innate behavioral predispositions of varying complexity is of utmost importance for the development of a sophisticated and comprehensive science of psychology. Evidence is accumulating that predisposing conditions are powerfully related to motoric patterns, semantic-syntactic factors, and propositional thought, as well as to aspects of social behavior. It is suggested that cooperation should be fostered among scientists in psychology, psycholinguistics, and ethology, and an open invitation is extended for clarifying critiques from philosophers of science.
Water-deprived rats were exposed to a distinctive (striped) arm of a T maze for 10, 20, or 40 min and then, following a 30- or 120-min delay interval, placed in a reinforcement chamber where they received either 15-min access to a sucrose solution (experimental subjects) or nothing (controls). About 44 hr after this conditioning trial a spatial preference test was administered in which the amount of time spent in the striped and in the alternative, black, arms of the T maze was recorded. Experimental animals spent greater amounts of time in the striped arm than did the controls, indicating a conditioned preference for the striped arm. Exposure to the striped arm was a critical variable in that conditioned preference was obtained with both the 20- and the 40-min exposures when reinforcement delay was 30 min but with the 120-min delay of reinforcement only the 40-min exposure was effective. These results indicate that one-trial, long-delay learning is not restricted to the acquisition of taste aversions.
In order to meet certain recurring criticisms of behavior theory it is necessary to assess the cross-cultural validity of behavioral propositions. The required tests should be as free as possible of time constraints, laboratory limitations, and cultural artifacts. Long-term natural experiments in nonurban, nonindustrial settings would be best. Anthropological studies, especially of community development programs, provide excellent information, as long as the data can be structured into the experimental paradigm. The Vicos Project is a successful natural experiment that lasted for a decade and produced significant changes in complex, arduous, and vital behavior patterns in scores of Peruvian villagers. The efficacy of procedures involving differential reinforcement demonstrates the cross-cultural validity of behavioral propositions.
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