A Methodological Study of Conditioning and Extinction of an Avoidance Response Via Social Facilitation in Dogs.

Extinction of an avoidance response motivated by intense fear: Social facilitation of the action of response prevention (flooding) in rats

A full understanding of the ontogeny of species-specific food preference requires a knowledge of the effects of social interactions on discrimination learning. In this study, learning rates and processes were compared in paired and single birds. The term empathic behaviour has been proposed to cover all forms of motor mimicry. Processes involved may include conditioning, social facilitation, local enhancement or visual imitation, though these distinctions are not fundamental. There is evidence supporting the operation of all these in avian behaviour, except the last. Greenfinches (Chloris chloris) were trained to feed from one of two patterns and to avoid the other, with whole and aspirin-filled sunflower seeds serving as positive and negative reinforcement. Single birds learned the discrimination rapidly, as did birds which had been allowed to observe a previously trained bird performing. Birds which were being trained in the presence of an untrained partner, however, required much longer. When birds of this last group were permitted to observe the training sequence of their untrained partners, their performances, which had previously been correct, repeatedly fluctuated to a random or nondiscriminatory level. The partners, in turn, then also began to fluctuate between random and non-random levels. Behavioral data preclude the operation of local enhancement or social facilitation. Thus, the results are interpreted to mean that, under the conditions that prevailed, a feeding response can be established more readily than an avoidance response, apparently as the result of conditioning (the unconditioned stimulus being the sight of another bird feeding). The suggestion is made that birds which show this type of learning pattern in nature will prove to be conservative in their feeding habits when compared with opportunistic species whose learned avoidance responses should be more stable.

A methodology was suggested to assess the effects of discrimination training on social facilitation of bar-pressing in rats. Ss were initially trained to bar-press for food and then given one of three kinds of discrimination training, S+, S°, and S−, in a runway task (different apparatus). A stimulus rat was discriminative for food reward or nonreward for running down an alley in the S+ and S− groups, respectively; for the S° group, a stimulus rat was randomly associated with reward and nonreward. After discrimination training, Ss were again given an opportunity to bar-press in the original apparatus under an extinction procedure and were tested in the presence and absence of a stimulus rat. Ss in the S° group responded 50% less in the presence of a stimulus rat, suggesting an initial tendency for social impairment rather than facilitation in the presence of another rat. Ss in the S+ group showed less social impairment than those in the S° group, with the S− group tending to respond more in the presence than absence of a stimulus rat, i.e., social facilitation.

Five groups of subjects were given training in the acquisition and extinction of an avoidance response (button‐press). The conditioned stimulus (CS) was a tone and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) was shock. Subjects in first group were tested alone (alone group), subjects in second group were tested while an audience waited outside subjects' room (aud‐out), in another group subjects had audience facing them during acquisition (acq‐aud), in fourth group subjects were trained alone during acquisition but had audience facing them during extinction (ext‐aud), and the last group of subjects were tested in the presence of an audience both during acquisition and extinction (acq‐ext‐aud). It was found that the effect of an audience during acquisition was to inhibit acquisition and the effect during extinction was to quicken extinction of avoidance. Results are discussed in terms of drive, anxiety‐reduction, and evaluation apprehension hypotheses.

Rat subjects were used to study the acquisition of a wheel-turn Sidman avoidance response under three levels of social interaction: physical, spectator, and single subjects. Zajonc’s (1965) theory of the effects of social interaction was supported. Subjects run alone acquired the avoidance response quickly, but subjects run with spectators or with co-responders did not acquire the response.

Baum (1969) found that the presence of a nonfearful rat during response prevention facilitated fear reduction. However, Baum used the problematic “reduction in the conditioned avoidance response” as a measure of fear. The present study re-examined the social facilitation effect by examining approach behavior as an index of fear. 60 male rats either received or did not receive response prevention. These treatments were presented either alone or in the presence of a mobile or immobile nonfearful rat. Although all measures of fear showed significant response prevention, none showed social facilitation. The discrepancy between these results and those of Baum was explained by hypothesizing the conditioning of incompatible responses within the context of avoidance procedures.

Exposure techniques in the reduction of fear: A comparative review of the procedure in animals and humans

Learning to fear and cope with a natural stressor: individually and socially acquired corticosterone and avoidance responses to biting flies