Auto-shaping or orienting?

Four experiments were carried out to study the development of the orienting response (OR) under different experimental conditions in the cat and rat. In Experiment I and II (cat) and Experiment IV (rat) classical CS-US pairing was used (with food, shock and water reinforcers, respectively). In Experiment III (cat) an instrumental pedal press response was brought under the control of a discriminative signal. In all four experiments the auditory CS was spatially discontiguous with reinforcement in order t o separate CS directed orienting responses from US related activities. Exposure to CS signalling food or water caused the animals to orient to it throughout conditioning (up to 700 trials) and this overt responding was absent if CS predicted aversive reinforcers. OR was consistently followed by goal (US) directed anticipatory activities. It is proposed that the CS directed auto-shaped response ("sign-tracking") is identical with the conditional orienting response, and that the spatio-temporal patterning of behaviors is influenced both by CS and US.