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G BOWER

Publications and source records attributed to G BOWER.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1964

EFFECT OF PRIOR PAVLOVIAN DISCRIMINATION TRAINING UPON LEARNING AN OPERANT DISCRIMINATION.

The effect of Pavlovian discrimination training with two stimuli upon subsequent learning of an operant discrimination involving those stimuli was studied. After preliminary lever press training, the lever was removed and thirsty rats received noncontingent pairings between S(1) (a tone or a clicker) and water reinforcements, whereas S(2) (a clicker or a tone) occurred always without reinforcement. This procedure presumably established S(1) as a positive CS for respondent behavior, whereas S(2) was established as an inhibitory CS. Following this training, the lever was reintroduced and the rats were trained on an operant (lever pressing) discrimination involving S(1) and S(2). For the Consistent Ss, S(1) was the S(D) and S(2) the S(Delta) in the operant discrimination; for the Reversed Ss, S(2) served as S(D) and S(1) as S(Delta). The Consistent Ss learned the operant discrimination significantly faster than did the Reversed Ss. The result emphasizes the importance of respondents, conditioned to S(D) and S(Delta), which modulate operant performance to these stimuli.

Conditioning, Operant↗
PubMed1963

Transfer across drives of the discriminative effect of a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus.

Previous results suggest that a stimulus paired in Pavlovian fashion with reward should exert some discriminative control over an unrelated operant response acquired under a different drive-reward system. In the following experiment, a stimulus was first paired with food reinforcement for a hungry rat. Subsequently, the animal learned to lever-press for water reinforcements when thirsty but not hungry. Finally, the control over lever-pressing of the food-paired stimulus was tested by presenting it at various times during extinction of the lever-pressing response. All animals in the experiment showed the expected effect; each emitted more lever-presses during periods of the food-paired stimulus than during alternate control periods.

Animals↗