Suppression of visual observing by rhesus monkeys produced by conditioned aversive visual stimuli.
Nine rhesus monkeys were tested in a visual observing situation to determine the influence of conditioned aversive visual stimulation. A set of meaningless visual stimuli was selected on the basis of cumulative frequency and cumulative duration of observing during a pretest phase of the experiment. Three subsets of stimuli (low, medium, high) were formed indicating level of observing during pretesting. A portion of the "medium" category of slides then served as conditioned stimuli in a classical conditioning procedure by being paired with electric shock. Following conditioning the entire set of stimuli was again presented in a visual observing situation. The results showed a significant decrease in both frequency and duration of observing of the slides with conditioned aversive qualities, relative to non-shock control slides. These findings support an aversion-produced suppression of observing relatively unconfounded by methodological, procedural, and other differences existing among previous reports on the role of fear or anxiety in this context.
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005239:Fear; D000882:Haplorhini; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D012107:Research Design; D014796:Visual Perception