Discrimination Reversal Facilitates Subsequent Acquisition of Temporal Discriminations in Rats' Appetitive Conditioning

摘要

Three experiments with rats assessed the effects of introducing predictive ambiguity by reversing a Pavlovianly trained discrimination on subsequent context and temporal conditioning. The experience of discrimination reversal did not facilitate context conditioning when the food was presented on a variable time schedule (Experiment la). However, in Experiment lb, discrimination reversal enhanced subsequent learning of a fixed temporal interval associated with unsignaled food presentation in comparison with consistent training. In Experiment 2,temporal discrimination after reversal and consistent training was compared with a na?ve control. The experience of discrimination facilitated subsequent temporal conditioning with respect to the naive control, and discrimination reversal enhanced temporal conditioning even further. In Experiment 3,reversal enhanced learning of the fixed temporal interval, regardless of whether it was relatively short or long (i.e., 30 s or 60 s). Results are discussed in terms of current associative theories of human and nonhuman conditioning and attention.