Thompson C I, Fitzsimons T R
J Gerontol. 1976 Jan;31(1):47-52. doi: 10.1093/geronj/31.1.47.
Rats 3, 7, 12, and 24.5 mo. old were trained to an 11/12 correct initial response criterion on a shock-motivated light-dark discrimination. Eight days later they were retrained to the same criterion. Original learning and relearning rates were not correlated, but both decreased linearly with increasing age. Ray and Barrett (1973) recently reported that, while year-old rats made fewer avoidances than younger animals on a shock-motivated discrimination, they appeared to have learned equally well, since there were no differences in number of correct initial responses. They suggested that avoidance scores may reflect performance factors and that learning decrements with age might not occur if the correct initial response measure were used. The present study demonstrates that this is not the case; when rats as old as 24.5 mo. are tested there are clear age-related deficits in number of correct initial responses.
对3个月、7个月、12个月和24.5个月大的大鼠进行电击驱动的明暗辨别训练，使其达到11/12正确的初始反应标准。8天后，对它们进行重新训练，使其达到相同的标准。原始学习率和再学习率不相关，但两者均随年龄增长呈线性下降。雷和巴雷特（1973年）最近报告称，虽然在电击驱动的辨别任务中，1岁的大鼠比年幼动物做出的回避反应更少，但它们似乎学得同样好，因为初始正确反应的数量没有差异。他们认为，回避分数可能反映了表现因素，并且如果使用正确的初始反应测量方法，随着年龄增长的学习能力下降可能不会出现。本研究表明情况并非如此；当对24.5个月大的大鼠进行测试时，初始正确反应的数量存在明显的年龄相关缺陷。
