Gallistel C R
Department of Psychology, University of California at Los Angeles 90024-1563.
Cognition. 1994 Apr-Jun;50(1-3):151-70. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(94)90026-4.
The self-stimulating rat performs foraging tasks mediated by simple computations that use interreward intervals and subjective reward magnitudes to determine stay durations. This is a simplified preparation in which to study the neurobiology of the elementary computational operations that make cognition possible, because the neural signal specifying the value of a computationally relevant variable is produced by direct electrical stimulation of a neural pathway. Newly developed measurement methods yield functions relating the subjective reward magnitude to the parameters of the neural signal. These measurements also show that the decision process that governs foraging behavior divides the subjective reward magnitude by the most recent interreward interval to determine the preferability of an option (a foraging patch). The decision process sets the parameters that determine stay durations (durations of visits to foraging patches) so that the ratios of the stay durations match the ratios of the preferabilities.
自我刺激的大鼠执行觅食任务，这些任务由简单的计算介导，这些计算利用奖励间隔和主观奖励大小来确定停留时间。这是一种简化的实验准备，用于研究使认知成为可能的基本计算操作的神经生物学，因为指定计算相关变量值的神经信号是通过对神经通路的直接电刺激产生的。新开发的测量方法产生了将主观奖励大小与神经信号参数相关联的函数。这些测量还表明，控制觅食行为的决策过程将主观奖励大小除以最近的奖励间隔，以确定一个选项（一个觅食斑块）的偏好性。决策过程设置了决定停留时间（对觅食斑块的访问持续时间）的参数，以便停留时间的比率与偏好性的比率相匹配。
