Pavlovian conditioned stimulus effects upon instrumental choice behavior are reinforcer specific

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Abstract

In a transfer-of-control experiment with rats, Pavlovian CSs were tested for the specificity of their effects. The instrumental behavior consisted of a discriminative, conditional two-lever choice task in which qualitatively different appetitive reinforcers were contingent upon the two correct choices. In a Pavlovian phase, subjects experienced conditioning to establish either a CS+ or CS for one reinforcer or a CS+ or CS for the other reinforcer. Finally, in a test, these CSs were presented when there was the opportunity to make choice responses. The CS+s evoked choices of the lever which had eventuated in the reinforcer that had served as the Pavlovian US, while the CSs showed only a slight tendency to evoke the other choice responses. When the CSs were compounded with the original SDs, the CS+s had little effect upon the vigor of responding while the CSs reduced the vigor of responding to the SD for the reinforcer that was the same as the US used in establishing the CS. The results are discussed in terms of associative mediational theory and the reinforcer specificity of Pavlovian conditioned excitation and inhibition.

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    This research was supported by grants to the Center for Research in Human Learning from the National Science Foundation (NSF/BNS 77-22075) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-01136).

    1

    The first author was supported by fellowship from the Graduate School, University of Minnesota.

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