Berry Meredith S, Odum Amy L
Utah State University.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2014 May;101(3):373-84. doi: 10.1002/jeab.86. Epub 2014 Apr 11.
The present experiment investigated the effects of reinforcer magnitude on resistance to disruption of remembering and response rates. Pigeons were exposed to a variable-interval (VI), delayed-matching-to-sample (DMTS) procedure with two components (rich and lean, distinguished by differing discriminative stimuli and hopper presentation duration). Completion of a VI 20 s schedule resulted in DMTS trials. In a DMTS trial, a choice of one of two comparison stimuli resulted in food if the choice matched the color of the previously presented sample stimulus. Separable aspects of the forgetting functions (initial discrimination and rate of forgetting) were examined by determining accuracy across a range of delays. Response rates and accuracy were higher in the rich relative to the lean component during baseline, and were more persistent during disruptors (extinction and prefeeding). During DMTS trials, extinction decreased initial discrimination more in the lean than the rich component, but had no systematic effect on rate of forgetting. During prefeeding, the rate of forgetting increased more in the lean than the rich component, but initial discrimination was not systematically affected. These results show persistence of response rates and remembering are positively related to reinforcer magnitude. The type of disruptor also influences the way in which remembering is disrupted.
本实验研究了强化物大小对记忆干扰抗性和反应率的影响。鸽子接受了一种可变间隔（VI）、延迟匹配样本（DMTS）程序，该程序有两个成分（丰富和贫乏，通过不同的辨别刺激和料斗呈现持续时间来区分）。完成20秒的可变间隔时间表后进行DMTS试验。在一次DMTS试验中，如果选择与先前呈现的样本刺激颜色匹配的两个比较刺激之一，就会得到食物。通过确定一系列延迟下的准确性，研究了遗忘函数的可分离方面（初始辨别和遗忘率）。在基线期，丰富成分相对于贫乏成分的反应率和准确性更高，并且在干扰期（消退和预喂）更持久。在DMTS试验中，消退对贫乏成分初始辨别的降低比对丰富成分的更大，但对遗忘率没有系统性影响。在预喂期间，贫乏成分的遗忘率增加比对丰富成分的更多，但初始辨别没有受到系统性影响。这些结果表明，反应率和记忆的持久性与强化物大小呈正相关。干扰物的类型也会影响记忆被干扰的方式。
