Department of Psychology, University of Vermont, 2 Colchester Ave., Burlington, VT 05405-0134, USA.
Appetite. 2012 Apr;58(2):484-9. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2011.12.006. Epub 2011 Dec 16.
Obesity and overeating have become fundamental problems in modern society. This article studies the inhibition of food-seeking behavior, and how contextual cues can control it. Rats that had free food in the home cage nevertheless learned to lever press for sucrose or high-fat pellets in a distinctive context (a Skinner box). Lever pressing was then inhibited by extinction, in which lever presses no longer produced food. After extinction, inhibited responding was "renewed" when the rats were switched to a different context: in the new context, the rats lever-pressed again, and worked more for food when food was made available. These effects were observed when conditioning, extinction and testing occurred in contexts A, B, and A (respectively) or in A, A, and B. Thus, mere removal from the context in which food-seeking was inhibited initiated a return to food-seeking. The contextual control of extinction may help explain why food seeking and consumption seem so persistent.
肥胖和暴饮暴食已成为现代社会的基本问题。本文研究了对觅食行为的抑制，以及环境线索如何控制它。尽管在自家笼子里有自由食物的老鼠，仍然学会了在一个独特的环境（斯金纳箱）中按压杠杆以获取蔗糖或高脂肪丸。然后，通过消除来抑制按压杠杆，在消除中，按压杠杆不再产生食物。消除后，当老鼠切换到不同的环境时，被抑制的反应会“恢复”：在新环境中，老鼠再次按压杠杆，并且在有食物时更努力地工作。当在环境 A、B 和 A（分别）或 A、A 和 B 中进行条件作用、消除和测试时，观察到了这些效果。因此，仅仅从抑制觅食的环境中移除就会引发对觅食的重新开始。消除的环境控制可能有助于解释为什么食物寻求和消费似乎如此持久。
