Aversive control is an important yet understudied process of learning. One reason aversive control may be relatively understudied is ethical concerns about painful stimuli (e.g., electric shock). High decibel broad-band noise and 22-kHz vocalizations both demonstrably affect rodent behavior while not necessarily being painful. The goal of this study was to determine if 100-dB 22-kHz-pure tones were differentially more effective in reducing operant response rates in rats. We examined whether 22-kHz pure tones would function as aversive stimuli, specifically as positive punishers. The effects of response-dependent as well as continuously presented 22-kHz and 1-kHz tones on rate of response maintained by variable interval 30-s food deliveries were assessed across several conditions. We found that response rates were lower when tones were presented response dependently than when tones were presented continuously throughout a session. We also found that the lower response rates obtained with response-dependent 22-kHz tones were not significantly different from response rates obtained with response-dependent 1-kHz tones. The primary conclusion of this experiment is that both 1-kHz and 22-kHz tones functioned as punishers, but that the 22-kHz tones were not differentially more effective in reducing response rate.
Keywords: auditory stimuli; aversive control; lever pressing; punishment; rats; ultrasonic vocalizations.
© 2017 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.