Devenport L D
Science. 1979 Aug 17;205(4407):721-3. doi: 10.1126/science.462183.
Unlike normal animals or those with sham lesions, rats with hippocampal and septal lesions behaved in an operant chamber as if a dependency existed between pellet delivery and their behavior, despite the fact that reinforcement was based on time, not behavior, and was therefore free. This superstitious behavior did not result from a general inability to inhibit responding, as responding rapidly ceased when the pellets were discontinued. These findings suggest that the hippocampus integrates information regarding response-reinforcer relations, which in the normal rat permits superfluous operant behavior to be eliminated.
与正常动物或假损伤动物不同，海马体和隔区损伤的大鼠在操作箱中的行为表现，就好像食丸投放与它们的行为之间存在某种依赖关系，尽管事实上强化是基于时间而非行为，因此是随意的。这种迷信行为并非源于抑制反应的普遍能力缺失，因为当食丸停止投放时，反应会迅速停止。这些发现表明，海马体整合了有关反应-强化物关系的信息，在正常大鼠中，这使得多余的操作性行为得以消除。
