The purpose of this study is to examine eligibility of surplus and disinhibition theories of displacement activities (3, 5, 6, ) by observing fighting and mating behaviors in Hariyo-sticklebacks which were first described by MAEDA, Y. (9)
The Hariyo-sticklebacks, natively inhabited in Samegai, Shiga-Ken, Japan, were transferred and raised in aquarium for experimental purposes. The behaviors were recorded by 8mm cinema with memotiming device which shot 100 pictures a minute and by time-scaled check sheets with 10 predecided behavioral categories.
1) Displacement activities in fighting situation.
The following situations were set in this experiment.
(a) A tank (30×30×60 cm) was divided into two compartments by a transparent partition. One male was put in the left compartment. Twenty hours later another male was put in the right (A, B, C in Table 1).
(b) A tank of the same size as in (a) was divided into two compartments by a two-layers partition of a transparemt and a translucent plates. One male was put at one time in each of both compartments. Twenty hours later only the translucent plate was drawn out (D in Table 1).
(c) This situation was the same as in (b) excepting that the translucent partition was not drawn out until both males made up their nests (E in Table 1).
In the condition (c), the level of fighting drive should be the highest. TINBERGEN, N. said when the level of fighting drive was heightened, displacement digging occurred which showed almost the same behavioral pattern as in true digging (7). Table 1 shows that in situation (b) or (c), the occurrences of threatening were high but few diggings were observed. As for determination of alternative occurrence of threatening and digging, surplus energy is less appropriate than available time by ROWELL, C. H. F. (1). This conclusion is supported by Table 2 and 3.
11) Displacement activities in mating situation.
TINBERGEN stated nest-building behaviors in mating situation were displacement activities. The results of our study, however, indicated that the male returned to the nest mainly to build or to repair it after pushing back the female (Fig. 4). Pushing back female also occurred when the nest was absent or incomplete. Since the nest was of primary importance in mating, nest-buildings in mating situation not concluded as displacement activities.

View full abstract

The purposes of this study were to observe the performances of rats on partial reinforcement schedule and test DEUTSCH'S theory that rate of extinction after self-stimulation is a function of the decay of an electrically induced drive state.
Each six Ss with hypothalamic electrodes was allowed to stimulate himself for 6 days. For three Ss (experimental group) the schedule was FR=1 : 3, while for the other three Ss (control group) it was 100% reinforcement schedule. The extinction scores of both groups were recorded for one hour on three successive days.
The results were as follows :
1. In the process of acquisition, experimental group partially reinforced responded more poorly than control group continuously reinforced.
2. Partial reinfocement led to significantly higher extinction scores than continuous reinforcement.
3. In the process of extinction, spontaneous recovery of both groups could be observed.
Most of these results are contrary to the predictions offered by DEUTSCH and also suggest that extinction after self-stimulation is not qualitatively different from that of orthodox conditioning.

View full abstract

It is theoretically inferred that the discrimination in avoidance conditioning is difficult in typical discrimination procedure when two stimuli to be discriminated are very similar. PAVLOV and LAWRENCE have reported that a difficult discrimination between two quite similar stimuli is more efficient when subjects are first trained on an easy discrimination between two dissimilar stimuli and then gradually approach the difficult one than if all the training is given directly on the difficult discrimination. The purpose of this experiment is to compare the efficiency of these two procedures on discrimination in avoidance conditioning.
Method Subjects : The Ss were 49 male albino rats. Apparatus : The apparatus was the modified MOWRER-MILLER shuttlebox. Procedure : After the establishment of avoidance conditioning to the CS which was 2000 cps tone, dicrimination training started. Hard Discrimination Group-I (HDG-I) was trained on the discrimination between 2000 cps (S⁺) and 1500 cps tone (S^-) throughout 15 days. Hard Discrimination Group-II (HDG-II) was given the same procedure as HDG-I, but training was continued for 25 days. Gradual Transition Group-I (GTG-I) started on the discrimination between 2000 cps and 500 cps tone (S^-) and then the S^- gradually approached the 1500 cps tone through a series of graduated steps. The S^- rose to 1500 cps by giving 250 cps every three days. Gradual Transition Group-II (GTG-II) was giving the same procedure as GTG-I, but the S^- rose every five days (See Table 1).
Results 1). The discrimination curves for each group are shown in Fig. 1 and 2. There was statistically significant difference between the number of responses to the S⁺ and S^- at the last step of discrimination training for each group. This means that discrimination between S⁺and S^- was established for each group. 2). In order to make comparisons between groups, discrimination ratios (S⁺-S^-/S⁺) were calculated as an indicator of discrimination learning. Curves of them in the last training step for four groups are presented in Fig. 3. As a result of statistical comparisons between groups on these ratios, no significant difference was shown between HDG-I and GTG-I, but between HDG-II and GTG-II. This suggests that the difficult discrimination between two very similar stimuli in avoidance conditioning was more efficient when subjects approached the difficult discrimination through a series of graduated steps than if all the training was given directly on the difficult one. This also suggests that one of the important factors for this effect was the duration of a step, that is to say, this effect was not obtained in case of the short duration of a step.

View full abstract

The purpose of these experiments (Experiment I, II) was to test the effect of the latent extinction procedure on response extinction, and whether the effects of the latent extinction procedure and the response extinction procedure on the test trials were the same or not. APPARATUS : A straight alley and a singleunit Y-maze painted gray. Two goal boxes painted black and a neutral box painted silvergray were the same in size. PROCEDURE : In each experiment, 29 rats were designed as follow under 20-21 hr. food deprivation. Learning Period : After given 10 trials a day in the straight alley as the preliminary training for 3 days, all Ss were given 10 trials a day in the Y-maze for 4 days. Runs to the correct side were always reinforced by the pellets in the white cup. There were no food and food-cup in the incorrect side. Latent Extinction Period : In each experiment, 29 Ss were divided into 3 groups. Experiment I - Ss of Group N were placed directly into the neutral box 4 times, each for 1min. and Ss of Group L, into the goal box similarly. Ss of Group C were detained in the homecage (Table 1). Experiment II - Ss of Group N' were placed into the neutral box 6 times, each for 1 min. and Ss of Group L', into the goal box similarly. Ss of Group C' ran 6 friee choice trials in the Y-maze on which used goal boxes involved food-cup in the previously positive side (Table 2). Response Extinction Period (Test) : After latent extinction period, all Ss were run until they reached the extinction criterion (2 incorrect responses in 4 successive trials). RESULTS : The latent extinction procedure reduced the resistance to extinction in Experiment I (Table 3) and Experiment II. In Experiment II, the effect of latent extinction would be found in regarding 6 response extinction trials, that the Ss were given during latent extinction period, as contained in the test trials, and shown in the Table 4-1 and Table 4-2. Each of these 2 tables shows, that the relationship between mean numbers of positive responses of 3 groups during Test was the same. These would support the MOLTZ'S hypothesis of reduction of secondary reward value about latent extinction. Table 5 present that the latent extinction trials (Group L') and response extinction trials (Group C') may have the same effect on the test trials. Difference between means of positive responses of Group N' and Group C' was expected to be significant, but no significant difference was found (Table 5). All trials in the Y-maze were run by Ss under the non-correction method. During Latent Extinction Period, the Ss of Group C', which ran 6 response extinction trials, choiced the positive goal box 4.3 times.

View full abstract