Capaldi E D, Davidson T L
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process. 1979 Oct;5(4):355-67. doi: 10.1037//0097-7403.5.4.355.
In Experiment 1, rats were given one trial per day in a straight alley under food deprivation on half of the trials and under water deprivation on the other half. Wet mash was available in the goal box under food deprivation for Group H and under water deprivation for Group T, the other deprivation being nonrewarded for each group. After 15--18 trials both groups ran significantly faster on their rewarded than on their nonrewarded deprivation days. A third group showed that random variation of alley color retarded formation of the discrimination. A fourth group was run in a conditional discrimination in which under food deprivation wet mash was available in a black alley, nonreward in a white alley, and vice versa under water deprivation. This group took 114 trials to begin running significantly faster in their rewarded than in their nonrewarded alley under each deprivation. In Experiment 2, it was shown that prior learning about deprivation cues "blocks" learning about alley color when alley color is subsequently presented in compound with the deprivation cue but that when both alley color and deprivation cues are relevant from the start of training, the rat learns about both cues. It is suggested that previous studies have underestimated the importance of deprivation cues by using conditional discrimination designs, choice measures rather than speeds, and parameters that are not optimal for discrimination learning.
在实验1中，大鼠每天在直道中接受一次试验，一半试验在食物剥夺条件下进行，另一半在水剥夺条件下进行。对于H组，在食物剥夺条件下，目标箱中有湿软食；对于T组，在水剥夺条件下，目标箱中有湿软食，每组的另一种剥夺条件下无奖励。经过15至18次试验后，两组在有奖励的日子里比在无奖励的剥夺日跑得明显更快。第三组表明，通道颜色的随机变化会阻碍辨别能力的形成。第四组进行了条件辨别试验，在食物剥夺条件下，黑色通道中有湿软食，白色通道中无奖励，在水剥夺条件下则相反。该组在每种剥夺条件下需要114次试验才开始在有奖励的通道中比在无奖励的通道中跑得明显更快。在实验2中，研究表明，当随后将通道颜色与剥夺线索同时呈现时，先前对剥夺线索的学习会“阻碍”对通道颜色的学习，但当从训练开始通道颜色和剥夺线索都相关时，大鼠会同时学习这两种线索。有人认为，以前的研究通过使用条件辨别设计、选择测量而非速度以及对辨别学习并非最优的参数，低估了剥夺线索的重要性。
