Department of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University.
Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2022 May;117(3):320-330. doi: 10.1002/jeab.755. Epub 2022 Mar 28.
The progressive ratio procedure is used across fields to assess motivation for different reinforcers, define the effects of experimental interventions on motivation, and determine experience-dependent changes in motivation. However, less is known about how operant training schedules affect performance on this widely utilized task. Here we designed an experiment to examine the effect of variable ratio versus fixed ratio training schedules of reinforcement on progressive ratio performance while holding other performance variables constant between groups. We found a robust increase in maximum ratio completed between the pretest and posttraining test highlighting a robust training effect on progressive ratio performance. However, it did not matter if the training was under a fixed or variable ratio schedule. Additionally, we show that neither individual rates during training nor extinction responding correlated with maximum ratio achieved during the sessions. Finally, we show that rates during the training sessions do correlate with extinction performance, suggesting that these variables measure a different aspect of performance that does not predict motivation.
递增比率程序在各个领域中被用于评估不同强化物的动机，确定实验干预对动机的影响，并确定动机的经验依赖性变化。然而，对于操作性训练时间表如何影响这项广泛使用的任务的表现，了解较少。在这里，我们设计了一项实验，以检验在保持组间其他表现变量不变的情况下，强化的可变比率与固定比率训练时间表对递增比率表现的影响。我们发现，在预测试和后测试之间，完成的最大比率有显著增加，这突出了递增比率表现的强大训练效果。然而，训练是在固定比率还是可变比率时间表下进行并不重要。此外，我们还表明，无论是在训练期间的个体率还是灭绝反应都与会话期间达到的最大比率无关。最后，我们表明，训练期间的速率与灭绝表现相关，这表明这些变量衡量的是表现的不同方面，而不预测动机。
