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THE “WHERE IS IT?” REFLEX: AUTOSHAPING THE ORIENTING RESPONSE
Author(s) -
Buzsáki György
Publication year - 1982
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.1982.37-461
Subject(s) - novelty , classical conditioning , conditioning , reinforcement , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , conditioned reflex , shaping , measures of conditioned emotional response , orienting response , neuroscience , habituation , fear conditioning , cognitive psychology , unconditioned stimulus , reflex , developmental psychology , social psychology , amygdala , mathematics , statistics
The goal of this review is to compare two divergent lines of research on signal‐centered behavior: the orienting reflex (OR) and autoshaping. A review of conditioning experiments in animals and humans suggests that the novelty hypothesis of the OR is no longer tenable. Only stimuli that represent biological “relevance” elicit ORs. A stimulus may be relevant a priori (i.e., unconditioned) or as a result of conditioning. Exposure to a conditioned stimulus (CS) that predicts a positive reinforcer causes the animal to orient to it throughout conditioning. Within the CS‐US interval, the initial CS‐directed orienting response is followed by US‐directed tendencies. Experimental evidence is shown that the development and maintenance of the conditioned OR occur in a similar fashion both in response‐independent (classical) and response‐dependent (instrumental) paradigms. It is proposed that the conditioned OR and the signal‐directed autoshaped response are identical. Signals predicting aversive events repel the subject from the source of the CS. It is suggested that the function of the CS is not only to signal the probability of US occurrence, but also to serve as a spatial cue to guide the animal in the environment.