Target-absent controls in blocking experiments with rats |
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| Authors: | Kathleen M Taylor Victory T Joseph Peter D Balsam M E Bitterman |
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| Institution: | Barnard College, New York, New York, USA. |
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| Abstract: | In three between-groups blocking experiments with rats, two concurrent and one forward, several common control procedures
were employed: Reinforced trials with the putative blocking stimulus were either omitted entirely (Kamin control), replaced
by unsignaled reinforcements (Wagner control), or replaced by reinforced trials with a different stimulus (C1 control). In
each experiment, parallel treatments with the target stimulus absent during training served to examine the possibility that
differential responding in tests with the target stimulus might be traced solely to differential exposure to the nontarget
stimuli. In Experiment 1, responding by a concurrent blocking group during the test was no different than responding by a
Kamin control group, and responding by a Wagner control group was greater than that of either of the other groups—a pattern
of results, mirrored in the performance of the target-absent groups, that could be attributed to the elevation of contextual
excitation by unsignaled reinforcement. In Experiment 2, responding in the test by a concurrent blocking group was no different
than that by a C1 control group. In Experiment 3, a finding of less responding by a forward blocking group than by a C1 control
group when the target stimulus was present during training, but not when it was absent, provided plausible evidence of blocking. |
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