Rescorla R A
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104, USA.
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process. 2000 Oct;26(4):428-38. doi: 10.1037//0097-7403.26.4.428.
When an AB stimulus compound is reinforced or nonreinforced, there are associative changes in both A and B elements. In many contemporary theories those changes are viewed as governed by a common error term, computed as the discrepancy between the total associative strength of the AB compound and that supported by the trial consequence. This implies that if A and B are equally salient, then the magnitude of their associative change should be the same, whatever their strengths prior to the AB trial. This implication was explored for a compound consisting of an excitatory A and an inhibitory B. A novel assessment procedure avoided the difficulty of making comparisons at different locations on the performance scale. Three experiments using a magazine approach preparation in rats and 3 using autoshaping in pigeons found evidence contradicting this implication. The excitatory A changed less than the inhibitory B when the compound was reinforced but more than B when the compound was nonreinforced.
当一个AB刺激复合物得到强化或未得到强化时，A和B元素都会发生联想性变化。在许多当代理论中，这些变化被视为由一个共同的误差项所支配，该误差项被计算为AB复合物的总联想强度与试验结果所支持的强度之间的差异。这意味着，如果A和B同样显著，那么它们联想性变化的幅度应该相同，无论它们在AB试验之前的强度如何。对于由兴奋性A和抑制性B组成的复合物，对这一含义进行了探究。一种新颖的评估程序避免了在绩效量表的不同位置进行比较的困难。三项使用大鼠杂志法准备的实验和三项使用鸽子自动塑造法的实验发现了与这一含义相矛盾的证据。当复合物得到强化时，兴奋性A的变化小于抑制性B，但当复合物未得到强化时，兴奋性A的变化大于B。
