Wan Michele, Djourthe Mamadou, Taylor Kathleen M, Balsam Peter D
Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, United States.
Behav Processes. 2010 Feb;83(2):154-61. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2009.11.012. Epub 2009 Nov 27.
The transfer of relative temporal representations was assessed in a series of three experiments. In each experiment, rats (Rattus norvegicus) received one set of conditioned stimulus (CS) and intertrial interval (ITI) durations in Phase 1 and another set in Phase 2. The ratio between the CS and ITI intervals was either changed or maintained across phases. On the hypothesis that relative temporal representations are learned, groups receiving maintained temporal ratios across phases were expected to display greater change in responding upon encountering the new intervals. When the CS duration decreased across phases, maintaining the temporal ratio did lead to greater change in Day 1 of Phase 2 towards the final pattern of responding. However, when the CS increased across phases, maintaining the temporal ratio across phases did not facilitate adjustment to the new intervals, suggesting that extinction of previously reinforced times induced new learning. These results provide evidence that under some conditions, relative relationships in temporal maps may survive transformation-of-scale, like relative relationships in spatial maps.
在一系列三个实验中评估了相对时间表征的转移。在每个实验中，大鼠（褐家鼠）在第一阶段接受一组条件刺激（CS）和试间期（ITI）持续时间，在第二阶段接受另一组。跨阶段改变或保持CS和ITI间隔之间的比率。基于相对时间表征是习得的这一假设，预计跨阶段保持时间比率的组在遇到新间隔时反应会有更大变化。当CS持续时间跨阶段减少时，保持时间比率确实导致第二阶段第1天朝着最终反应模式有更大变化。然而，当CS跨阶段增加时，跨阶段保持时间比率并未促进对新间隔的调整，这表明先前强化时间的消退诱导了新的学习。这些结果提供了证据，即在某些条件下，时间图谱中的相对关系可能像空间图谱中的相对关系一样在尺度变换中幸存下来。
