Behavioral contrast with fixed interval and low-rate reinforcement.
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A pigeon's pecking at each of two or three simultaneously available red keys was reinforced at different frequencies with a conditioned reinforcer, an orange key, on which 25 pecks resulted in a presentation of grain. Pecking was occasionally punished with a period of no reinforcement during which each key was dark. Both with two and with three keys, the relative frequency of pecking on a key was equal to the relative frequency of reinforcement obtained by pecks on that key. Also, the absolute frequency of pecking on each key was a linear function with zero intercept of the absolute frequency of reinforcement associated with that key. The slope of this function varied with the number of available keys; it was steeper with two than with three. The relative frequency of switching from any key (two successive pecks on different keys) approximated a linear function with zero intercept and slope slightly greater than 1.0 of the total relative frequency of reinforcement associated with the keys to which the bird could switch. However, the relative frequency of switching to a particular key often showed systematic irregularities. The invariance in these data is the equality between the relative frequency of pecks on one of two or three keys and the relative frequency of reinforcement associated with that key.
One class of theoretical accounts of associative learning suggests that reinforcers are processed according to learning rules that minimize the predictive error between the expected strength of future reinforcement and its actual strength. The omission of reinforcement in a situation where it is expected leads to inhibitory learning of stimuli indicative for such a violation of the prediction. There are, however, results indicating that inhibitory learning can also be induced by other mechanisms. Here, we present data from olfactory reward conditioning in honeybees that show that (1) one- and multiple-trial backward conditioning results in conditioned inhibition (CI); (2) the inhibition is maximal for a 15-sec interval between US and CS; (3) there is a nonmonotonic dependency on the degree of CI from the US-CS interval during backward pairing; and (4) the prior association of context stimuli with reinforcement is not necessary for the development of CI. These results cannot be explained by models that only minimize a prediction error. Rather, they are consistent with models of associative learning that, in addition, assume that learning depends on the temporal overlap of a CS with two processes, a fast excitatory and a slow inhibitory one, both evoked by a reinforcer. The fmdings from this behavioral analysis of reinforcement processing are compared with the known properties of an individual, identified neuron involved in reinforcement processing in the bee brain, to further understand the mechanisms underlying predictive reward learning.
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One-day-old rats in a cool environment (25 degrees C) quickly acquired an instrumental response when rewarded with a 20-s warming of the platform (from 25 degrees C to 36 degrees C) on which they lay. The instrumental response, turning the head to one side, was learned within 30 min after the thermal contingency began and extinguished when the contingency was reversed. This experiment demonstrates rapid operant learning by neonates in a task that does not contain a Pavlovian stimulus-reinforcer contingency. The novel experimental method has wide applicability in psychology and neuroscience.
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Learning of rats in the process of elaboration of instrumental conditioned reflex takes place much faster at the probability of random fulfillment of correct reaction (PRCR) equal to 0.25 and 0.125 than at PRCR 0.5 and 0.05. Decrease of the frequency of positive reinforcements of correct reactions from 100 to 25% does not influence the speed of learning at PRCR 0.25 and 0.125, however significantly retards the process of learning at PRCR 0.05. There exist optimum and pessimum for learning PRCR values at different regimes of reinforcement.
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Pigeons were trained on simultaneous red-green discrimination procedures with delayed reward and sequences of stimuli during the delay. In Experiment 1, three stimuli appeared during the 60-second intervals between the correct responses and reward, and the incorrect responses and nonreward. The stimulus that immediately followed a correct response also preceded nonreward, and the stimulus that followed an incorrect response preceded reward. These stimuli were 10 or .33 second in duration for different groups. Stimuli during the remainder of the delay interval differed following correct and incorrect responses. Group 10 initially persisted in the nonrewarded choice, but shifted to a preponderance of rewarded responses after further training. Group .33 rapidly acquired the correct response. Similar results were obtained in Experiment 2 where delay intervals consisted of opposite sequences of two stimuli of equal duration and total delays were 6, 20, or 60 seconds. Early in training, generalization of differential conditioned-reinforcing properties from the conditions preceding reward and nonreward to postchoice conditions had a greater effect relative to backchaining than it did later. It was concluded that delayed-reward learning is best analyzed in terms of the conditioned-reinforcing value of the patterns of cues that follow immediately after rewarded and nonrewarded responses.