Rice Nathaniel C, Myers Todd M
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, 8350 Ricketts Point Rd, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, 21010.
Learn Motiv. 2025 May;90. doi: 10.1016/j.lmot.2025.102112. Epub 2025 Mar 11.
Pretraining refers to events or conditions explicitly arranged prior to the learner (e.g., student, employee) experiencing specific instruction within the learning environment (i.e., training). Such pretraining can occur inside or outside of the specific learning environment, but by definition must precede the onset of training. Pretraining can modify the rate and quality of early learning and the final performance levels attained. Within experimental psychology, laboratories often include pretraining to hasten acquisition, but few empirical studies support this practice. Therefore, in the present study, four distinct levels of pretraining were examined by randomly assigning 284 naïve rats into groups: no training, chamber acclimation, pellets only, or magazine training. By manipulating experience with the chamber, food pellets, and stimuli associated with pellet delivery, direct assessments were made of pretraining on autoshaped lever press acquisition and incremental progress through a fixed order of common (ratio and interval) schedules of reinforcement. Pretraining affected acquisition, and the several measures of learning corroborated the presumed benefits of magazine training. Notably, simple pre-exposure to the chamber (both with pellets and without pellets in the magazine) also promoted acquisition compared to the no-training group. Nevertheless, despite clear benefits upon acquisition in early sessions, comparable levels of performance developed as training progressed, with the exception of higher lever-pressing rates from the magazine-training group compared to the pellets-only and chamber-acclimation groups. Magazine training hastened operant acquisition, but the overall benefit was somewhat diminutive and short-lived, and the practical value of these pretraining procedures on subsequent operant performance appears limited.
预训练是指在学习者（如学生、员工）在学习环境（即培训）中接受特定指导之前明确安排的事件或条件。这种预训练可以发生在特定学习环境的内部或外部，但根据定义必须先于培训开始。预训练可以改变早期学习的速度和质量以及最终达到的表现水平。在实验心理学中，实验室经常进行预训练以加速习得，但很少有实证研究支持这种做法。因此，在本研究中，通过将284只未经训练的大鼠随机分组，考察了四种不同水平的预训练：无训练、适应实验箱、仅给予食丸或进行信号训练。通过操纵大鼠对实验箱、食丸以及与食丸递送相关的刺激的体验，直接评估了预训练对自动形成的杠杆按压习得的影响，以及在固定顺序的常见（比率和间隔）强化程序中的渐进进展。预训练影响习得，并且几种学习测量方法证实了信号训练的假定益处。值得注意的是，与无训练组相比，简单地预先接触实验箱（无论实验箱中有无食丸）也促进了习得。然而，尽管在早期训练阶段对习得有明显益处，但随着训练的进行，各实验组的表现水平趋于相当，不过信号训练组的杠杆按压率高于仅给予食丸组和适应实验箱组。信号训练加速了操作性习得，但总体益处有些微小且短暂，这些预训练程序对后续操作性表现的实际价值似乎有限。
