ADIENT REACTION POTENTIAL AND ABIENT REACTION POTENTIAL AS A FUNCTION OF THE DISTANCE FROM THE OBJECT (1)

Abstract

Problem Hull has proposed the following hypotheses concerning adient and abient behaviors.
1. The strength of adient reaction potential is a negative growth function of the distance of the organism from the object.
2. The strength of abient reaction potential is a negative growth function of the distance of the organism from the object.
3. The strength of abient reaction potential increases more rapidly with decreasing distance to the object than does that of adient reaction potential.
4. The strength of adient or abient reaction potential varies with the strength of drive.
There hypotheses are proposed on the basis of J. S. Brown's experimental work. But his work does not completely verify them at a quantitative level because of the following reasons:
a) The strength of pull (used as an index of reaction potential) was measured only at two points, one near the object and the other away from the object.
b) Not only the effect of the object, but also those of the motor factor and the starting point, per sec., would act on the strength of pull.
c) The effect of the pulling time was not examined. In other words, it was not examined whether the average strength of pull for 5sec. was an optimal time for measuring reaction potential or not.
The present writer attempted to examine these problems as well as to find conditions necessary to verify the above mentioned hypotheses.
Method Guinea pigs between 3 and 4 months of age at the beginning of the experiment were used. These animals were trained, under 23 hours food deprivation, to approach the end of a straight alley for food. After attainment of a prescribed criterion, the strength of pull was measured at different points in the alley. The pulling time was 3sec. in experiment 1, and 10sec. in experiments 2 and 3.
Results
1) The strength of pull could be measured at five points in the alley without evoking experimental extinction.
2) The effects of the motor factor and the starting point, per sec., could be controlled by keeping the distance between a pull point and the starting point constant.
3) Average strengths of pull were used as indices of reaction potential. It was indicated that the average strength of pull for 10sec. was superior to those for 3sec. and for 5sec. (Brown's condition) (Fig. 7, 8).
4) The results verified one of Hull's hypotheses, i.e., the strength of adient reaction potential is a negative growth function of the distance from the object (Fig. 7, 9, 10).