The University of Iowa, United States.
The University of Iowa, United States.
Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2020 May;171:107211. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2020.107211. Epub 2020 Mar 7.
The study of bidirectional conditioning began more than a century ago, yet it has failed to take strong root in psychology and neuroscience. We revisit this topic by exploiting E. A. Asratyan's alternating procedure of stimulus presentation, in which both forward (e.g., A → B) and backward (e.g., B → A) training trials are concurrently given, in order to analyze their potential interaction. Specifically, using a two-alternative, forced-choice task, we trained humans and pigeons to learn associations between stimuli depending on whether they were presented as sample stimuli or choice stimuli. Trials were selected from an associative network in which forward and backward associations between sample and choice stimuli were synergistic (bidirectional network) or from an associative network in which these associations were not synergistic (unidirectional network). Humans were faster to learn associations from the bidirectional network than from the unidirectional network; additionally, they performed poorly on unidirectional trials that allowed for the expression of (incorrect) bidirectional associations. Unlike humans, pigeons showed no evidence of bidirectional associations. The reasons for this species difference as well as future directions for research deploying Asratyan's two-way training technique are discussed.
双向 Conditioning 的研究可以追溯到一个多世纪以前，但它在心理学和神经科学领域并没有得到广泛应用。我们通过利用 E. A. Asratyan 的交替刺激呈现程序来重新探讨这个话题，该程序同时提供正向（例如，A→B）和反向（例如，B→A）训练试验，以分析它们的潜在相互作用。具体来说，我们使用了一种二选一的强制选择任务，训练人类和鸽子根据刺激是作为样本刺激还是选择刺激来学习刺激之间的关联。试验是从一个联想网络中选择的，其中样本和选择刺激之间的正向和反向关联是协同的（双向网络），或者从一个联想网络中选择的，其中这些关联不是协同的（单向网络）。人类从双向网络中学习关联的速度比从单向网络中更快；此外，他们在允许表达（错误的）双向关联的单向试验中表现不佳。与人类不同，鸽子没有表现出双向关联的迹象。讨论了这种物种差异的原因以及未来使用 Asratyan 的双向训练技术的研究方向。
