HISTORY OF RAT PREFERENCE FOR SIGNALED SHOCK - FROM PARADOX TO PARADIGM

The evidential and logical status of preference‐for‐signal in the inescapable unmodifiable shock context in rats was examined over a period that has seen the notion of a preference for signalled shock develop from an apparent paradox in the existing conceptual framework of the 1950s to a readily acceptable, established paradigm in the 1970s. The transformation of the phenomenon from paradox to paradigm was found to be unwarranted from an assessment of the merits of symmetrical and asymmetrical preference procedures upon which it was based. 1979 Australian Psychological Society