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1. Defense and the Conditional Reflex
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2. Flight, Locomotion and Image Memory
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3. Olfactory Familiarity and Imprinting
Page 3

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Neophobia and Object Memory
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Learning of "Wildness"
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Habituation to Handling
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Learning of Visually-Released Boxing
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Conclusion
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Figure 1
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Bibliography
Page 10

The route of locomotion during flight which is motivated by defense is at least partly determined by experience. The latter is the basis for the well-known observation that latencies to successful escape are reduced over successive trials. At least one thing learned by the animal is his "escape route". The rapid and unerring flight of a wild rodent into the entrance of his tunnel is no doubt learned by repeated practice; the escape route could scarcely be preprogrammed in his genetic code.

The failure to find an escape route may be the reason for the so-called "learned helplessness" caused by experience with electric shock in a test situation from which there is no escape exit [54]. In reviewing the many studies of this phenomenon, Anisman and Waller [5] found that "learned helplessness" occurs in situations where the animal must avoid by shuttle-box avoidance or bar press or wheel turn, but it does not occur when the animal can avoid by jumping out of the chamber altogether or can avoid by remaining passive. In the former situations the animal has no exit from the chamber; fear itself is not reduced, however, since the animal will escape if given an exit and will show facilitated passive avoidance. If rats are familiar with the fact that a cage has no exit, they are less likely to attempt flight behavior in response to electric shock [9] or in response to a cat [10].

The route of approach locomotion which precedes offensive attack may also be acquired through experience. It is well documented that the latency to intermale fighting of mice decreases regularly and dramatically over repeated test sessions [34, 38, 28], a phenomenon which may be understood in terms of a lower latency and faster speed:of approach locomotion. Although some investigators have attributed the effect to the reinforcing properties of the attack itself [60] a recent study indicates that the attack is not necessary, but the approach by itself, if repeated, will lead to lower approach latencies even if there is no fighting [32].

The learning of escape routes for flight and approach routes for offensive attack are probably analogous to the learning of approach routes for feeding behavior. If so, then the extensive work of Beritashvili on the role of image memory in learning the approach route for feeding should be applicable to the understanding of these phenomena.

Recent work, reviewed by Black et al. [7], suggests that the hippocampus plays a major role in the learning of approach and escape routes, which they call "space strategy" in distinction to "cue strategy" involved in classical conditioning.