Molecular Neuroscience Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia 22030, USA.
Learn Mem. 2013 Oct 17;20(11):648-56. doi: 10.1101/lm.031336.113.
Learning by repetition engages distinct cognitive strategies whose contributions are adjusted with experience. Early in learning, performance relies upon flexible, attentive strategies. With extended practice, inflexible, automatic strategies emerge. This transition is thought fundamental to habit formation and applies to human and animal cognition. In the context of spatial navigation, place strategies are flexible, typically employed early in training, and rely on the spatial arrangement of landmarks to locate a goal. Response strategies are inflexible, become dominant after overtraining, and utilize fixed motor sequences. Although these strategies can operate independently, they have also been shown to interact. However, since previous work has focused on single-choice learning, if and how these strategies interact across sequential choices remains unclear. To test strategy interactions across sequential choices, we utilized various two-choice spatial navigation tasks administered on the Opposing Ts maze, an apparatus for rodents that permits experimental control over strategy recruitment. We found that when a second choice required spatial working memory, the transition to response navigation on the first choice was blocked. Control experiments specified this effect to the cognitive aspects of the secondary task. In addition, response navigation, once established on a single choice, was not reversed by subsequent introduction of a secondary choice reliant on spatial working memory. These results demonstrate that performance strategies interact across choices, highlighting the sensitivity of strategy use to the cognitive demands of subsequent actions, an influence from which overtrained rigid actions may be protected.
通过重复学习来掌握不同的认知策略，这些策略的贡献会随着经验的积累而调整。在学习的早期，表现依赖于灵活、专注的策略。随着练习的不断延长，不灵活、自动化的策略就会出现。这种转变被认为是习惯形成的基础，适用于人类和动物的认知。在空间导航的背景下，位置策略是灵活的，通常在训练早期使用，依赖于地标物的空间排列来定位目标。反应策略是不灵活的，在过度训练后占主导地位，并且利用固定的运动序列。虽然这些策略可以独立运作，但它们也被证明是相互作用的。然而，由于之前的工作集中在单项选择学习上，如果和如何这些策略在连续选择中相互作用仍然不清楚。为了测试跨连续选择的策略相互作用，我们利用了各种双选择空间导航任务，在对立 Ts 迷宫上进行，这是一种用于啮齿动物的仪器，可以对策略招募进行实验控制。我们发现，当第二个选择需要空间工作记忆时，第一个选择的反应导航就会受阻。对照实验将这种效应指定给了次要任务的认知方面。此外，一旦在单项选择中建立了反应导航，随后引入依赖空间工作记忆的次要选择并不会改变。这些结果表明，表现策略在选择之间相互作用，突出了策略使用对后续动作的认知需求的敏感性，这种影响可能会保护过度训练的僵化动作。
