Concurrent performances: a baseline for the study of conditioned anxiety

Three rats were trained to lever press on concurrent random interval 2-min random interval 2-min schedules of milk reinforcement. With a 5-sec changeover delay, relative response rate matched the relative reinforcement duration associated with each lever. A stimulus, during which unavoidable shocks occurred at random intervals, was superimposed on this concurrent baseline, and shifts in preference were found. However, data from this procedure were ambiguous, apparently confounded by shock-elicited response bursts. Termination of the shocks during the stimulus resulted in a rapid recovery of matching, which was preceded by a brief facilitation of responding on the less-preferred lever. The procedure was then changed to a conventional conditioned anxiety paradigm with a variable duration pre-shock stimulus. A marked shift in relative response rate towards the preferred lever was found in all three rats; that is, responding on the preferred lever was far less suppressed during the pre-shock stimulus than responding on the less-preferred lever.