Abstract
Four experiments were conducted to study the unconditioned stimulus (US) duration effects upon conditioned suppression of licking in rats. After ascertaining the aversiveness of footshocks to be a direct function of their duration in Experiment 1, these shocks were used as USs in Experiment 2. The US duration had no systematic effect upon conditioning. The 0.7- and 4.9-s shocks, which had been proved to be different in their aversiveness in Experiment 1, were used as USs in Experiment 3. Shock duration had no effect on conditioning with a between-subject design, but the 4.9-s US produced greater conditioned suppression than the 0.7-s shock in a within-subject design. Experiment 4 showed that the US-duration effect was facilitated when rats had more chances to compare USs of different durations within a session. The results were discussed with reference to the results of previous experiments on the US-duration effect as well as to the Rescorla–Wagner model and Miller's comparator hypothesis.
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