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Abram Amsel is a Canadian-born experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and professor. His main contribution to the field of cognitive science is his work on Frustration Theory. Amsel developed Frustration Theory as an outgrowth of Learning Theory. He has authored three books: Mechanisms of Adaptive Behavior (1984); Behaviorism, Neobehaviorism, and Cognitivsm in Learning Theory (1988); and Frustration Theory: An Analysis of Dispositional Learning and Memory (1992).

Abram Amsel was born on December 4, 1922 in Montreal, Canada. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 1944. He completed his Master's degree at McGill University in 1946 ^[1]. In 1948, he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of Iowa, where he had worked under the supervision of Kenneth Spence. Amsel was married to Tess Amsel, with whom he had three children: Steve, Andrew, and Geoff. Amsel was a dedicated teacher, family man, and a lover of art and music ^[2]. He died at the age of 83 on August 31, 2006 after being afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. His living relatives include his three sons; daughters-in-law, Jan, Janice Duff, and Stephanie; and grandchildren, Ben, Adam, David Duff-Amsel, Becky, and William; and sister and brother-in-law Millie and Phemie Ostroff ^[1].

After recieving his Ph.D from the University of Iowa, Amsel began working as an assistant professor at Tulane University in New Orleans. Amsel worked at Tulane until 1960, at which time he had received the position of Professor of Psychology. He left in 1960 to work at the University of Toronto, where he remained until 1969 ^[1]. In 1969, Amsel took a position at the University of Texas, where he replaced his former supervisor, Kenneth Spence. He finished his career there in 1999. Throughout his academic career, Amsel had several temporary positions at institutions such as University College London, England (1966-1967), University of Pennsylvania (1974-1975), and the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1986-1987). He authored 3 books and more than 250 research articles ^[2]. Amsel received much recognition for his academic contributions to psychology including the Howard Crosby Warren Medal for Outstanding Research in Psychology, and induction into the National Academy of Sciences in 1992 ^[1]. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Society, and a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Developmental Psychology, and the International Brain Research Organization. He served on the governing board of the Psychonomic Society, and he was editor for two of the Society's publications: Psychonomic Science: Section on Animal and Physiological Psychology and Animal Learning and Behavior. He also served as consulting editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychophysiology ^[2].

Clark Hull was a prominent learning theorist in the 1930s and 1940s. He worked to construct a learning theory that grew from earlier experiments by behaviorists Ivan Pavlov and Edward Thorndike. His theory was primarily concerned with the identification of the factors that contributed to the formation of habits and goal expectancies and their interaction with the concepts of need, drive, and demand. Hull’s neobehaviorism emphasized learned and unlearned stimulus-response associations and adaptiveness of behavior. Kenneth Spence, a student of Hull, carried on Hull’s tradition of experimental research and theory ^[3]. Spence attempted to construct a comprehensive theory of behavior that would encompass conditioning and other forms of learning. In his book ‘’Behavior Theory and Conditioning,’’ Spence argued that discrimination learning takes place when connections between specific stimuli and responses are established, such as when responses are reinforced by a reward. He claimed that learning potential is dependent on the strength of the drive and on the strength of the incentive (the reward/reinforcement) ^[4]. Amsel was a self-proclaimed disciple of Clark Hull and Kenneth Spence and the neobehavioristic tradition ^[5]. Neobehaviorism is a school of psychology based on the general premises of behaviorism, but more flexible in its ideas ^[6]. While at the University of Iowa studying for his Ph.D, Amsel was supervised by Kenneth Spence ^[2]. Even before that, Amsel was introduced to Hull's ideas in his book Principles of Behavior by Bob Malmo, a professor at McGill University, where Amsel obtained his Master's degree ^[5]. In one of his early experiments, Amsel claims that a good theory of instrumental behavior must involve three types of goal event: rewarding events, punishing events, and frustrative events. He says that Hull's theory focused on the first two kinds of events, and that his own goal was to study the third kind, the frustrative event ^[7]. Amsel argued that including this third factor would bring Hull's theory more in line with Spence's theory of discrimination learning ^[8].

Amsel’s 1958 article “The Role of Frustrative Nonreward in Noncontinuous Reward Situations” was the first of his theoretical articles on frustration ^[8]. In this article, Amsel distinguished his definition of frustration from frustration's common meaning. For his experimental purposes, Amsel defined frustration as a hypothetical, implicit reaction elicited by the absence of reward after a number of prior rewards ^[7]. In these early years, Amsel’s work involved experiments with laboratory rats where he would typically place the rats in a runway with a goal box in the end. The rats would run to the goal box and find either food (reward) or nothing (nonreward) ^[9]. Amsel noted that rats would run faster following nonreward than reward, and termed this the frustration effect (FE). This effect of increased running speed occurs after nonreward only when several rewarded trials have previously occurred. Amsel also tested whether the frustration effect occurred only after a period of continuous reward, or if the frustration effect could appear following partial reinforcement. He found that there is an immediate frustration after continuous reward, and only a gradual development of the frustration effect after partial reinforcement ^[7].The results of Amsel’s early experiments led him to posit four stages of frustration theory. First, the subject approaches the goal box vigorously, even when it is only partially reinforced (reward occurs in only half the trials). Next, the subject begins to react emotionally when reward is continuously withheld. This emotion was demonstrated in the rats by their urination, defecation, and biting. In the third stage, subjects exhibit other emotional, conflict-like behavior, exemplified by the rats’ retracing and urination in the runway. Finally, these outward manifestations of conflict disappear and the subjects return their initial (vigorous, consistent) approach. Amsel’s explanation for this pattern was that between the third and fourth stages, counterconditioning occurs, meaning that subjects become more resistant to extinction and therefore more persistent ^[8].

Developmental psychobiology was a new area of psychology in the 1970s. It was concerned with the complex behavioral and physiological mechanisms that sustain animals soon after birth, when they are not able to survive without their mothers' care ^[2]. During the second stage of his career, Amsel's primary subjects were lab rats in their prenatal and early postnatal stages. His experiments focused on the development and condition of the limbic system, especially the hippocampus and amygdala. His experiments during this time investigated questions such as: how does specific intervention in these brain areas affect the emergence of frustration-related behavioral effects? Do the kinds of training required for frustration effects induce changes in the brain (i.e. neuroplasticity)? ^[8] His work resulted in much information on the development of frustration effects. At eleven days old, rats can learn to discriminate the presence or absence of reward on the basis of a pattern where rewards and nonrewards are alternated every other trial. These pups can only make this discrimination if the time between trials is brief. As they grow older, the rats’ developing memory systems allows them to make this discrimination over longer intervals. At fourteen days old, rat pups exhibit a different response to a partial reinforcement schedule versus a continuous reinforcement schedule – they are more persistent when responding to a partial reinforcement schedule (find both rewards and nonrewards in goal box). At eighteen days of age, an effect Amsel termed the “magnitude-of-reinforcement-extinction effect” (MREE) is first seen: intensified frustration and extinction are faster after continuous reinforcement training with large rewards (compared to small rewards). At twenty-five days old, rats who shifted from large to small rewards showed an emotionally related decrease in performance (termed “successive negative contrast”, or SNC) compared to rats who received a small reward continuously from the beginning trials ^[10].

In the 1950s, a change occurred in the focus of psychology, known as the cognitive revolution. This revolution was characterized by a movement away from behaviorism and neobehaviorism and toward cognitivism ^[11]. Neobehaviorists who had been primarily concerned with overt behaviors became interested in the cognitive, representational processes that accompanied such behaviors, and the field of behavioural neuroscience emerged ^[12]. Amsel’s work around this time turned to a focus on the brain areas related to Frustration Theory. He found that many of the frustration effects he had observed depended on the limbic system and the adjacent cortical areas, particularly the hippocampal formation. Portions of the hippocampal system that are important in learning and memory show a rapid rate of development in prenatal and postnatal stages in the rat ^[10]. Amsel’s methodology during this stage involved examining the effects of brain lesions, radiation, alcohol, and drugs on dispositional learning in both adult and infant rats. Amsel also used Electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the activity of the hippocampus in the form of sensory evoked potentials ^[13]. These studies resulted in the identification of the anatomical changes that occur in the hippocampus that account for the development of expectations of reward and frustration ^[2]. Specifically, Amsel found that hippocampal damage (not cortical damage) reduces, but does not eliminate, the capacity of rats to pattern their responses to single alterations of reward and nonreward ^[13]. Thus, in this last stage of his career, Amsel made important contributions to behavioral neuroscience ^[2].

Amsel has been critiqued for being too much of a behaviorist, and not focusing in enough detail on the neurophysiological elements underlying his theory. Stewart H. Hulse is one such critic, who says that more experiments are needed on the function and structure of the hippocampus to support and build upon Frustration Theory. Rather than focusing on the emotional correlates of nonreward, Hulse proposes focusing on the perceptual and cognitive properties associated with nonreward – how the subject perceives and processes information about the stimulus before it ^[14]. Other critics have focused on identifying flaws regarding specific facets of Amsel’s Frustration Theory. In "The Amsel Frustration Effect: Interpretations and Research,” John W. Scull critiques Amsel’s Frustration Theory and points out different problems that the theory either does not account for or accounts for incorrectly. Concerning magnitude of reward, for example, Frustration Theory makes the prediction that speed on nonreward trials should increase with increasing magnitude of reward on reward trials. However, Scull found only one between-groups experiment which obtained a difference on nonreward trials, the rest all obtained a difference only on reward trials. Scull presents similar inconsistent results relating to various other elements of Frustration Theory including: prior reward, variations in the frustrated response, incomplete incentive reduction, the motivational nature of the frustration effect, learned reactions to frustration, escape from frustration, the generalization decrement hypothesis, and differential conditioning interpretations. Scull concludes that Amsel’s theory cannot account for all the results obtained in his various experiments without the addition of other assumptions ^[15]. It is up to modern and future researchers in the area to add these assumptions.

• Mechanisms of Adaptive Behavior (1984)
• Behaviorism, Neobehaviorism, and Cognitvism in Learning Theory: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (1988)
• Frustration Theory: An Analysis of Dispositional Learning and Memory (1992)

• Amsel, A. (1949). Selective association and the anticipatory goal response mechanism as explanatory concepts in learning theory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 39, 785-99.
• Amsel, A. (1950). The combination of a primary appetitional need with primary and secondary emotionally derived needs. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40, 1-14.
• Amsel, A. (1950). The effect upon level of consummatory response of the addition of anxiety to a motivational complex. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40, 709-15.
• Amsel, A. (1958). The role of frustrative nonreward in noncontinuous reward situations. Psychological Bulletin, 55, 102-19
• Amsel, A. (1961). Hope comes to learning theory [review of O.H. Mowrer's Learning theory and behavior]. Contemporary Psychology, 6, 33-6.
• Amsel, A. (1962). Frustrative nonreward in partial reinforcement and discrimination learning: Some recent history and a theoretical extension. Psychological Review, 69, 306-28.
• Amsel, A. (1968). Partial reinforcement and frustration. Psychological Bulletin, 10, 107-8.
• Amsel, A. (1973). Editorial. Animal Learning & Behavior,1, 1.
• Amsel, A. (1986). Daniel Berlyne Memorial Lecture: Developmental psychobiology and behaviour theory. Reciprocating influences.Canadian Journal of Psychology,40, 311–342.
• Amsel, A. (1990). Arousal, suppression, and persistence: Frustration theory, attention, and its disorders. Cognition and emotion, 4, 239-68.
• Amsel, A. (1992). Frustration theory: Many years later. Psychological Bulletin, 112(3), 396-399.
• Amsel, A. (1994). Précis ofFrustration Theory: An Analysis of Dispositional Learning and Memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,1, 280–96.
• Amsel, A., Burdette, D.R., & Letz, R. (1976). Appetitive learning, patterned alternation, and extinction in 10-day-old rats with non-lactating suckling as reward. Nature, 262, 816-18.
• Amsel, A.,& Chen, J.-S. (1976). Ontogeny of persistence: Immediate and long-term persistence in rats varying in training age between 17 and 65 days. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 90, 808-20.
• Amsel, A., & Cole, K.F. (1953). Generalization of fear-motivated interferference with water intake. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 46, 243-7.
• Amsel, A., Ernhart, C.B., & Galbrecht, C.R. (1961). Magnitude of frustration effect and strength of antedating goal factors. Psychological Reports, 8, 183-6.
• Amsel, A., & Hancock, W. (1957). Motivational properties of frustration: III. Relation of frustration effect to antedating goal factors. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53, 126-31.
• Amsel, A., Hug, J.J., & Surridge, C.T. (1969). Subject-to-subject trial sequence, odor trails, and patterning at 24-hour ITI. Psychonomic Science, 15, 119-20.
• Amsel, A., MacKinnon, J.R., Rashotte, M.E., & Surridge, C.T. (1964). Partial reinforcement (acquisition) effects within subjects. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 7, 135-8.
• Amsel, A., & Maltzman, I. (1950). The effect upon generalized drive strength of emotionlity as inferred from the level of consummatory response. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40, 563-9.
• Amsel, A., Radek, C., Graham, M., & Letz, R. (1977). Ultrasound emission in infant rats as an indicant of arousal during appetitive learning and extinction. Science, 197, 786-8.
• Amsel, A., & Roussel, J. (1952). Motivational properties of frustration: I. Effects on a running response of the addition of frustration to the motivational complex. Journal of Experimental Psychology,43, 363–368
• Amsel, A., & Surridge, C.T. (1964). The influence of magnitude of reward on the aversive properties of anticipatory frustration. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 18, 321-7.
• Amsel, A., & Ward, J.S. (1954). Motivational properties of frustration: II. Frustration drive stimulus and frustration reduction in selective learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 48, 37-47.
• Amsel, A., & Ward, J,S. (1965). Frustration and persistence: Resistance to discrimination following prior experience with the discriminanda. Psychological Monographs, 79, (4, Whole No. 597).
• Amsel, A., Wong, P.T.P., & Scull, J. (1971). Transfer of persistence in the domestic chick: Imprinting, punishment and resistance to extinction of a food-reward running response. Psychonomic Science, 25, 174-6.
• Amsel, A., Wong, P.T.P., & Traupman, K.L. (1971). Short-term and long-term factors in extinction and durable persistence. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 90, 90-5.
• Amsel, A., & Work, M. S. (1961). The role of learned factors in "spontaneous" activity. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 54(5),