AN AUTOMATIC SHOCKING-GRID APPARATUS FOR CONTINUOUS USE

B. F. SKINNER AND S. L. CAMPBELL Indiana University Received May 13, 1947

The usual shocking-grid consists of a series of bars wired alternately to positive and negative poles of the current source. The animal may avoid shock by standing on like poles, or by shorting the grid with faeces. Constant attention is necessary to prevent this, and the experiment must be disturbed from time to time. The apparatus here described was designed to provide an escape-fromshock motive in connection with a lever-pressing response in rats, to permit the use of automatic controlling and recording devices which require little or no supervision. In this apparatus a commutator provides a changing pattern of polarities at the grid bars. Any two bars are of opposite poles at least once each second, and the shorting of any one pair leaves all other pairs functional part of the time. The grids are* also slowly rocked by an eccentric drive to clean them of faeces The walls are part of the electrode system and the design insures equipotential punishment throughout the box. The commutator may be seen at 2, figure I.1 Figure 2 gives a wiring diagram. The commutator consists of a hollow fiber cylinder, encircled by two metal bands. Brushes making contact with these bands are wired to the secondary transformer leads. Small brass contacts are inserted into the cylinder in four rows of twelve each. Each row is wired within the cylinder to the two bands to give a different pattern of polarities for each row. Twelve brushes carrying current from these contacts are connected to the bars of the grid. There are thus four patterns of polarity at the grid bars during each revolution of the commutator, and each bar is "hot" with every other bar at least once during a revolution. The commutator has a speed of 60 R.P.M. This device can be used with any of the standard sources of shocking current. In the model shown in figure 1, the transformer has a secondary output of fivehundred volts. Variable resistors and a large fixed external resistance are in series with the grid. The grids are slowly rocked through 90 degrees at the rate of 16 cycles per minute. A substitute for the eccentric drive might be a direct gear drive with fiber gears meshing from one bar to the next, in which case the bars would make complete revolutions. In the apparatus shown, the speed of the motor could be changed with a variac in order to determine a suitable speed. The grid bars are connected with the commutator through brushes. The experimental box is similar to that which has previously been used with hunger and thirst drives (1). A seven-watt lamp is mounted over frosted glass
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Built by Mr. Max Wastl, Lafayette Instrument Co., Lafayette, Indiana. 305

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B. F. SKINNER AND S. L. CAMPBELL

Fio. 1. EXPERIMENTAL Box AND SHOCKING DEVICE (1) transformer, milliammeter and variable resistor; (2) commutator; (3) motor for commutator and eccentric drive; (4) variac for motor speed control; (5) experimental box with rocking grids.

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FIG. 2. CIRCUIT DIAGRAM FOE SHOCKING DEVICE (1) transformer (500 V., a.c. from secondary); (2) milliammeter; (3) adjustable resistor (2-6 megohms); (4) commutator wiring. The commutator has 4 series of 12 contact points, from which the current is carried off by wire brushes. These brushes are wired directly to brushes at the back of experimental box making contact with the rocking grids.

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in the ceiling of one end of the box, and a lever projects from a wall at the opposite end. In an earlier apparatus, the rats were observed to avoid the shock by climbing on the lever, hanging from crevices in the walls or ceiling, leaning between one grid and the wall, and sitting with hairless portions of the feet below the grids. To complete the effect of the commutator and rotating bars, it was necessary to make all four walls electrodes by covering three walls with metal plates, insulated at the corners, and by putting a fine-mesh metal screen inside the fourth one-way-vision wall. Since there were only twelve leads from the commutator, but eighteen terminals to be wired, it was necessary to wire some of the grids and walls in parallel. Only those terminals which the rat would be unable to touch at the same time (e.g., the lever and opposite wall) were placed in parallel.

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FIG. 3. RECORDS OBTAINED BY CONDITIONING Rats press a lever to eliminate shock, which recurred every 15 seconds. Record A was taken with the present apparatus, and record B with a standard grid. Responses are cumulative.

This apparatus has been in use for more than 350 hours. At no time has a rat been observed to escape punishment except by the desired response of pressing the lever. Faeces are rocked off the grids immediately; and shock reception is insured no matter what position the animal may assume in the box. The apparatus can thus be used unattended for long periods. The records shown in figure 3 were obtained by conditioning rats to press the lever to eliminate shock. The shock recurred 15 seconds after each response, so that at an advanced stage of conditioning (with no anticipatory responding), the curve should be a straight line with a slope of four responses per minute Figure 3-A shows records taken with the present apparatus. A record taken with a standard grid is shown for comparison at B. The dependability of the present apparatus is obvious.
REFERENCE 1. SKINNER, B. F. The behavior of organisms: an experimental analysis. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1938.