Escape and avoidance responding in the toad

Abstract

Southern toads, Bufo terrestris terrestris, were given 20 daily trials in a one-way avoidance box for five days. The frequency of no responses decreased, avoidance responses increased, and escape responses remained essentially the same. There was an increase in the number of avoidance responses in each daily session of trials, followed by a lower initial level of avoidance responding on the following day. An improvement in performance as measured by response latency was also observed. The pattern of response latencies was consistent with that of the avoidance responses in that there was a decline in response latency over daily trials with higher initial levels on the early trials of the following day. © 1966, Psychonomic Press. All rights reserved.