Discriminated avoidance learning and reversal by goldfish in a shuttlebox using a linear presentation procedure

Abstract

Goldfish, trained in a shuttlebox with cues and shock controlled by a linear presentation procedure, learned to control prevailing cue states and shock, and thus to discriminatively avoid shock presentation. The linear presentation procedure, adapted for the shuttlebox from the sequence of cue presentation occurring in the Y-maze, utilized three cues on each trial, a trial-start (TS) cue, a shock-paired (S-) cue, and an unpaired (S+) cue. At trial onset (TS cue), the goldfish had 10 sec to respond. The first response produced, via response-contingent programming, either the shock-paired (S-) or unpaired (S+) cue, and subsequent responses produced alternation of S+ and S-. The shock was omitted only if the S+ cue state prevailed 10 sec after trial onset. AU other cue states (TS and S-) were paired with shock. Goldfish learned to respond and control the prevailing cue state so that the S+ cue prevailed at 10 sec posttrial onset for a variety of different color-cue combinations and also learned to reverse their originally learned cue preference when the color cues were reversed. The linear presentation procedure represents an alternative discrimination learning procedure that appears to be free of the interpretational problems encountered in training goldfish in the shuttlebox apparatus with other one- and two-stimulus procedures. © 1981 Psychonomic Society, Inc.