Lennartz Robert C
Department of Psychology, Indiana University Southeast, New Albany, Indiana 47150, USA.
Learn Behav. 2008 May;36(2):138-44. doi: 10.3758/lb.36.2.138.
Performance on various spatial tasks is superior in the presence of extramaze cues that provide guidance in locating the goal. This study was an investigation of the effect of such cues on nonrewarded, continuous spontaneous alternation in a plus-maze, a spatial task with no explicit reinforcement. Rats were tested in five daily sessions. Alternation scores, which reflect how frequently the least recently visited arms are chosen, were calculated for each day. On the first day only, rats in the stimulus-rich condition, with cues added to the curtain that surrounded the maze, alternated more than did rats in the stimulus-poor condition. Over days, the stimulus-rich group showed a significant downward trend in alternation, whereas the stimulus-poor group showed an upward trend, but all the groups always alternated at levels greater than chance. Thus, although performance on this task can be enhanced by the presence of extramaze cues, other types of information support alternation.
在存在能为定位目标提供指引的迷宫外部线索时，大鼠在各种空间任务中的表现会更出色。本研究调查了此类线索对在十字迷宫中无奖励的连续自发交替行为的影响，十字迷宫是一种没有明确强化机制的空间任务。大鼠每天接受五次测试。计算每天的交替得分，该得分反映了选择最近最少访问过的臂的频率。仅在第一天，处于丰富刺激条件下（在围绕迷宫的幕布上添加线索）的大鼠比处于贫乏刺激条件下的大鼠交替次数更多。随着时间推移，丰富刺激组的交替次数呈现显著下降趋势，而贫乏刺激组则呈上升趋势，但所有组的交替次数始终高于随机水平。因此，尽管迷宫外部线索的存在可以提高这项任务的表现，但其他类型的信息也支持交替行为。
