School of Psychology.
J Exp Psychol Anim Learn Cogn. 2022 Oct;48(4):321-335. doi: 10.1037/xan0000319. Epub 2022 May 12.
Conditioned responding that has been extinguished can spontaneously return when the conditioned stimulus (CS) is first presented after an extended delay. This spontaneous recovery of responding suggests that the memory of nonreinforced experience with the CS is impaired over the delay period. Rescorla (2007) provided evidence that this effect of time on nonreinforcement is not specific to extinction. He showed that a delay period can also reverse the reduction of responding established by a partial reinforcement schedule. Here we describe a series of experiments that attempted to confirm Rescorla's finding and additionally assessed the impact of the delay on another well-known consequence of partial reinforcement-the partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE). Like Rescorla, we used a Pavlovian conditioning procedure with rats, measuring magazine activity during a CS that signaled food. Unlike Rescorla, we did not find that responding acquired under partial reinforcement spontaneously increased after a delay; however, we did observe a significant reduction in the PREE after that delay. We conclude that the passage of time has a selective effect on the retrieval of memories of nonreinforcement. Therefore, time produces spontaneous recovery by impairing retrieval of extinction memories but also weakens the PREE by impairing retrieval of memories of nonreinforcement that were acquired during partial reinforcement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
条件反应在经过长时间的延迟后，当条件刺激（CS）首次出现时，会自发地恢复。这种反应的自发恢复表明，在延迟期间，与 CS 无强化经验相关的记忆受到了损害。Rescorla（2007）提供的证据表明，这种时间对非强化的影响不仅限于消退。他表明，延迟期也可以逆转部分强化计划建立的反应减少。在这里，我们描述了一系列实验，试图证实 Rescorla 的发现，并进一步评估了延迟对部分强化的另一个著名后果——部分强化消退效应（PREE）的影响。与 Rescorla 一样，我们使用了大鼠的经典条件反射程序，在 CS 期间测量食物的摄取量。与 Rescorla 不同的是，我们没有发现部分强化获得的反应在延迟后会自发增加；然而，我们确实观察到延迟后 PREE 显著降低。我们的结论是，时间的流逝对非强化记忆的检索有选择性的影响。因此，时间通过损害消退记忆的检索来产生自发恢复，但也通过损害在部分强化期间获得的非强化记忆的检索来削弱 PREE。
