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EFFECTS OF LONG‐TERM SHOCK AND ASSOCIATED STIMULI ON AGGRESSIVE AND MANUAL RESPONSES 1
Author(s) -
Hutchinson R. R.,
Renfrew J. W.,
Young G. A.
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1971.15-141
Subject(s) - term (time) , shock (circulatory) , psychology , aggression , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , computer science , developmental psychology , medicine , physics , quantum mechanics
Squirrel monkeys were exposed to response‐independent, fixed‐frequency shock that produced biting attack upon a pneumatic hose. Attacks decreased within and across sessions at low intensities and high frequencies of shock, but increased within and across sessions at higher intensities and lower shock frequencies. Stimuli paired with shock, when presented alone, came to produce biting, and stimuli correlated with shock parameters that produced increases in responding within sessions produced similar increases when presented alone. Further experiments showed that continuing exposure to shock also produced lever pressing or chain pulling, with longer shock exposure again producing higher response rates. Whereas biting generally decreased throughout the intershock interval, manual responding generally increased as shock time approached, but immediately before shock was often suppressed. Following shock, biting attack predominated over manual behavior. The results suggest a possible explanation for the extreme resistance of avoidance behavior to extinction, and may also partially explain the persistence of responding during schedules of response‐produced shock. Relationships of the present findings to naturalistic observations of relations between fleeing, freezing, and fighting performances are discussed.