Orellana Barrera Estefanía, Arias Carlos, González Felisa, Abate Paula
Instituto de Investigación Médica M. y M. Ferreyra, INIMEC-CONICET-UNC, Córdoba, Argentina.
Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Enfermera Gordillo esq. Enrique Barros, Ciudad Universitaria., Córdoba, Argentina.
Dev Psychobiol. 2017 Apr;59(3):348-356. doi: 10.1002/dev.21499. Epub 2017 Mar 13.
The present study evaluated context-dependent learning under an operant conditioning procedure in infant rats. Preweanling rats were trained in context A during postnatal days (PDs) 16 and 17 to learn an appetitive operant conditioning task, employing milk chocolate as appetitive reinforcer. On PD18 the operant response was extinguished in context A, or in an alternative context B. The change from context A to B between acquisition and extinction did not affect the number of responses during extinction, but slightly modified the shape of the extinction curve. On PD19, a renewal test conducted in context A clearly showed ABA-renewal of the extinguished operant response. These results add to the body of evidence indicating that infants are able to acquire and retain contextual information, and support the notion that extinction during this ontogenetic period involves new learning.
本研究在幼鼠的操作性条件反射程序下评估了情境依赖学习。在出生后第16天和第17天，将断奶前的幼鼠置于情境A中进行训练，以学习一种操作性条件反射任务，使用牛奶巧克力作为强化物。在出生后第18天，在情境A或另一个情境B中消除操作性反应。在习得和消退之间从情境A转换到情境B并不影响消退期间的反应次数，但略微改变了消退曲线的形状。在出生后第19天，在情境A中进行的恢复测试清楚地显示了消退的操作性反应的ABA恢复。这些结果进一步证明了婴儿能够获取和保留情境信息，并支持了在这个个体发育阶段的消退涉及新学习的观点。
