Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37232-0615, USA.
Neurosci Lett. 2012 Mar 5;511(1):8-11. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2011.12.068. Epub 2012 Jan 9.
Animals will acquire an operant task using sensory stimuli as a primary reinforcer. Many operant tasks use sensory stimuli as cues that are paired with other primary reinforcers. Recent studies have called attention to this potential confound, but there has not been a parametric assessment of the effect of stimulus variability on operant responding. We found that stimulus variability increased the amount of operant responding exhibited by mice, a phenomenon observed under both fixed- and progressive-ratio schedules.
动物会通过感官刺激来获得操作性任务，而感官刺激本身可以作为初级强化物。许多操作性任务使用感官刺激作为线索，这些线索与其他初级强化物配对使用。最近的研究引起了人们对这种潜在混杂因素的关注，但还没有对刺激变异性对操作性反应的影响进行参数评估。我们发现，刺激变异性增加了老鼠表现出的操作性反应的数量，这种现象在固定比率和递增比率两种方案中都有观察到。
