The Effect of a Warning Signal on Unrestricted Avoidance Behaviour

Bibliographic Data

ID9620907
AuthorsJ D Keehn (American University of Beirut, corresponding author)
Year1959
Volume50
Issue2
Pages125-135
Publication date1959-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1269 • E-ISSN: 2044-8295
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.2044-8295.1959.tb00690.x
OpenAlexW2077770115
LanguageEN
Citations received5

In an avoidance situation where interval responses served to postpone the onset of the next ‘trial’ animals were trained with and without a warning signal. Those animals which received the warning signal were free to postpone the onset of this signal as well as shock. It was found, however, that these animals come to respond more and more in the presence of the signal instead of before it. That is, they behaved so as to postpone the shock but not the warning signal. This finding is interpreted as showing that, contradictory to the opinion of many psychologists, the warning signal does not acquire secondary aversive properties. Instead it is argued that this signal has the properties of a discriminative stimulus in the sense that it marks the occasions on which the appropriate avoidance response is reinforced. The relevance of this point of view to paradoxical statements by Hull and Pavlov is pointed out

Audiology · Aversive Stimulus · Avoidance learning · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Relevance (law) · SIGNAL (programming language) · Stimulus (psychology) · Stimulus control · Behavioral and Psychological Studies · Communication · Computer Science · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Medicine · Memory and Neural Mechanisms · Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Psychology

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