Effects of long-term shock and associated stimuli on aggressive and manual responses

Squirrel monkeys were exposed to response-independent, fixed-frequency shock that produced biting attack upon a pneumatic hose. Attacks decreased within and across sessions at low intensities and high frequencies of shock, but increased within and across sessions at higher intensities and lower shock frequencies. Stimuli paired with shock, when presented alone, came to produce biting, and stimuli correlated with shock parameters that produced increases in responding within sessions produced similar increases when presented alone. Further experiments showed that continuing exposure to shock also produced lever pressing or chain pulling, with longer shock exposure again producing higher response rates. Whereas biting generally decreased throughout the intershock interval, manual responding generally increased as shock time approached, but immediately before shock was often suppressed. Following shock, biting attack predominated over manual behavior. The results suggest a possible explanation for the extreme resistance of avoidance behavior to extinction, and may also partially explain the persistence of responding during schedules of response-produced shock. Relationships of the present findings to naturalistic observations of relations between fleeing, freezing, and fighting performances are discussed.