Stimulus-response Model Research Articles

Actions and habits: the development of behavioural autonomy

The study of animal behaviour has been dominated by two general models. According to the mechanistic stimulus-response model, a particular behaviour is either an innate or an acquired habit which is simply triggered by the appropriate stimulus. By contrast, the teleological model argues that, at least, some activities are purposive actions controlled by the current value of their goals through knowledge about the instrumental relations between the actions and their consequences. The type of control over any particular behaviour can be determined by a goal revaluation procedure. If the anim al’s performance changes appropriately following an alteration in the value of the goal or reward without further experience of the instrumental relationship, the behaviour should be regarded as a purposive action. On the other hand, the stimulus-response model is more appropriate for an activity whose performance is autonomous of the current value of the goal. By using this assay, we have found that a simple food-rewarded activity is sensitive to reward devaluation in rats following limited but not extended training. The development of this behavioural autonomy with extended training appears to depend not upon the am ount of training per se, but rather upon the fact that the animal no longer experiences the correlation between variations in performance and variations in the associated consequences during overtraining. In agreement with this idea, limited exposure to an instrumental relationship that arranges a low correlation between performance and reward rates also favours the development of behavioural autonomy. Thus, the same activity can be either an action or a habit depending upon the type of training it has received.

Behavioural Assessment: Basic Principles

Those seeking a definition of “behaviour therapy” or “behaviour modification” may experience some frustration when textbooks and journals are consulted. At one stage it was generally agreed that behaviour therapy involves the application of the principles and knowledge of modern learning theory to maladaptive human behaviour (Eysenck, 1959). However, this definition has been challenged. It has been suggested that behaviour therapy should not be restricted to learning theory but encompass experimental psychology and related disciplines such as physiology and neurophysiology (Yates, 1971). Still others suggest that ties to learning theory and experimental psychology are tenuous and should be discarded (Lazarus, 1971). With the advent of several conceptual variations — applied behaviour analysis, the neobehaviouristic stimulus-response model, multimodal behaviour therapy, social learning theory and cognitive-behaviour modification — attempts to define behaviour therapy are even more difficult. However, Kazdin and Hersen (1980) suggest that the major characteristics of behaviour therapy consist of:1. A strong commitment to empirical evaluation of treatment and intervention techniques;2. A general belief that therapeutic experiences must provide opportunities to learn adaptive or prosocial behaviour;3. Specification of treatment in operational and, hence, replicable terms;4. Evaluation of treatment effects through multiple-response modalities, with particular emphasis on overt behaviour.

Investigation of drug-receptor interactions by means of irreversible receptor inhibitors: binding of oxytocin and angiotensin II to their receptors in rat uterus.

A stimulus-response coupling model in which individual steps follow hyperbolic or Hill-type laws has been employed to mimic phenomena associated with irreversible receptor inhibition (receptor reserve) in a responding biological system. Two methods for computation of ligand-receptor dissociation constant (KA) have been derived from this model: 1) The relation between pD2 and maximal attainable response allows a rough estimate of KA; 2) A generalization of the earlier Furchgott-Bursztyn procedure employing equipotent doses for noninhibited and partially inhibited systems, has been achieved by introduction of Hill equation into the model. Applied to oxytocin and angiotensin II receptors in rat uterus, these pharmacological methods indicate rather low affinity of the two receptors for the respective peptides (around 2 X 10(-8) for angiotensin II and 2 X 10(-7) mol/l for oxytocin), in case of oxytocin much lower than values reported from binding studies. Apparently, several binding sites are present on the target tissue cells from which the methods based on cellular response can pick up those corresponding to the receptors. Biophysical methods are lacking this ability. Single pD2 values in noninhibited systems cannot themselves deliver any relevant information about receptor binding.

The induction of metamorphosis of marine invertebrate larvae: stimulus and response

The induction of metamorphosis by environmentally derived cues is reviewed in barnacles, molluscs, hydroids, echinoids, and ascidians in the context of the neurological and behavioral model of stimulus and response. The model proposes that cues associated with preferred juvenile or adult habitats are the stimuli. Stimuli are received by receptors that communicate with the effectors of metamorphosis, larval and adult tissues. The response is a combination of morphogenetic, histolytic, and histogenic processes. Receptors in all five taxa are assumed to be superficial sensory receptors, though there is no direct evidence for their involvement in the perception of cues. Although the induction of metamorphosis by environmental cues in all five taxa fits well within a stimulus–response model, there is currently only circumstantial evidence for neural or endocrine control of metamorphosis.

Interactions and Perceptions in the Test Ban Negotiations

The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 represented the first major breakthrough in postwar arms control negotiations, and thus in some ways laid the foundation for a series of subsequent agreements (especially among the nuclear powers), which have become the primary concrete representations of the present superpower detente. Although many of these agreements may have had little substantive effect upon the arms race, they have at least been affected by and exerted a subsequent impact upon political relations between the communist bloc nations and those of the Western bloc. This article reports on an analysis of the negotiations among the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom leading up to this test ban treaty. Specifically, it applies the two-step mediated stimulus-response model (S—r:s—R) to analyze these negotiations. This model predicts that negotiators' perceptions will be influenced by the behavior of other nations toward their country both outside and inside the negotiating forum, that these perceptions will then be converted into plans about their responses, and finally that these plans will become actualized in overt responses toward other nations, both within and outside negotiations. Several conclusions were reached. First, the perceptual variables generally had little significant impact in mediating between stimuli and responses, although they did appear to exert some influence in the case of Great Britain; in the other cases there was little congruence between changes in perceptions and in actual behaviors over time. Second, the behaviors of the three nuclear powers within the test ban negotiations were highly symmetrical over time; that is, each nation tended to change its responses roughly “in kind” with changes in the stimuli directed toward it from other actors both inside and outside negotiations. Third, there was substantial consistency between the interactions among actors inside and outside negotiations, suggesting that the negotiation process was in some ways a small-scale reflection of the general patterns of conflict and cooperation among the three nuclear powers in their overall interactions.

Situational dimensions of self-reported nervousness.

Summary Endler, Hunt, and Rosenstein's systematic application of the stimulus-response model in their psychometric study of anxiety provided the impetus and rationale for this work, investigation of the situational dimensions of self-reported nervousness. Factor analysis of a nervousness inventory revealed three broad dimensions, characterized by social situations, situations of physical discomfort or potential bodily harm, and situations of disorder or disruption. The first two of these dimensions have been observed before. The third has not been conspicuously noted and may especially merit further study.

Response sequences following “wrongs” in a concept task

Two hundred and forty Ss were run on one of 12 fixed sequences of stimuli which varied along two dimensions. Each S was required to make one of two responses on each trial; regardless of which response was made, it was called “wrong.” The frequencies with which response sequences occurred were tabulated. It was suggested that a simple stimulus-response model might fit the data at least as well as hypothesis-sampling models employing memory parameters.

Stress, distress, and ego defenses. Psychoendocrine response to impending breast tumor biopsy.

Perhaps because of its simplicity and its appeal to common sense, the concept that strain or distress is directly proportional to stress in the human is often regarded in medical-psychiatric investigation as an established fact. This formulation would appear to be a legacy from several different sources: from the stimulus-response model in experimental animal psychology, from traditional engineering mechanics (eg, the greater the load or stress on a spring, the greater the displacement or strain of that spring), and, finally, from what is implied by the infectious disease model in medicine itself (ie, the greater the number of infecting organisms innoculated into a host, the more serious is the ensuing infection likely to The manifestations of this reasoning are varied. Thus, importance is frequently attached to the fact that certain chronic diseases of unknown etiology (eg, diabetes, colitis, hypertension) may have appeared to begin or to become exacerbated during

Capacities and Natures

The last two decades have witnessed a basic change in the philosopher's working model for capacities. The change has been from a stimulus-response model to a fine-structure model. The stimulus-response model was an attempt to understand capacity propositions by means of conditional propositions in which the antecedents expressed operations in certain circumstances and the consequents expressed realizations of the capacities in question. No attempt is made on this model to relate such conditional propositions to components of the entities with the capacities. An entity with a capacity is just a black box.Now the conditional proposition to which a capacity proposition is related on the stimulus-response model is a modal conditional. It expresses the idea that the behavior characteristic of the capacity must follow upon those operations in those circumstances for an entity like one with the capacity.

Stimulus-response theory of finite automata

The central aim of the paper is to state and prove a representation theorem for finite automata in terms of models of stimulus-response theory. The main theorem is that, given any connected finite automaton, there is a stimulus-response model that asymptotically becomes isomorphic to it. Implications of this result for language learning are discussed in some detail. In addition, an immediate corollary is that any tote hierarchy in the sense of Miller and Chomsky is isomorphic to some stimulus-response model at asymptote. Representations of probabilistic automata are also discussed, and an application to the learning of arithmetic algorithms is given.

Memory limitations of stimulus-response models.

Patrick Suppes has suggested that just as higher mathematics may be deduced from set theory, so may automata theory be deduced from stimulus-response theory. In other words, he seeks to destroy criticisms of stimulus-response theory based on the need for an internal state to mediate between stimulus and response by showing that memory can be conditioned by a suitable schedule of reinforcement. The fundamental axiom of stimulus-response theory is that for each stimulus-response table there is a stimulus-response model that asymptotically becomes isomorphic to it in that there is a reinforcement schedule which will ensure with repeated trials. In fact, finite-memory systems are well studied by some mathematicians and computer scientists under the label finite automata. Suppes notes that Miller, Galanter, and Pribram objected to the conditioned reflex as the building block for a scientific psychology. They formulated a theory of plans in terms of test-operate-test-exit (TOTE) units, a plan then being defined as a TOTE hierarchy.

Measuring Affect and Action in Inter National Reaction Models

The Cuban crisis of October 1962 may be analyzed from several perspectives. The investigator may focus his attention on the unique characteristics of the situation and sequence of events which are outlined here. The analyst of international relations may, as is suggested in this paper, examine these events so as to permit relevant comparisons with other crisis situations, both those resolved by war and those eventually resolved by non-violent means. The conceptual framework for this analysis is a two-step mediated stimulus-response model in which the acts of one nation are considered as inputs to other nations. Such psycho-political variables as perceptions and expressions of hostility are traced over time by means of content analysis of documents to test the consistency of the model. In the Cuban crisis, both sides tended to perceive rather accurately the nature of the adversary's actions and then proceeded to act at an appropriate level. Efforts by either party to delay or reverse the escalation toward conflict were generally perceived as such, and responded to in like manner.