ERIC Number: EJ947529
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Nov
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0023-9690
EISSN: N/A
Intertrial Pellets Influence the Acquisition and Expression of Timed Appetitive Responding in Rats
Williams, Douglas A.; Lussier, April L.
Learning and Motivation, v42 n4 p300-312 Nov 2011
Two experiments examined temporally based changes in the conditioned magazine-entries of rats when a target food pellet arrived at a fixed time before the termination of a conditioned stimulus. Both experiments found that increasing the rate of intertrial pellets systematically interfered with the rate of acquisition. When intertrial pellets were featured in acquisition, their omission on test trials also resulted in a very poorly expressed conditioned response. On test trials preceded by intertrial pellets, however, peak times in groups trained with intertrial pellets were shifted in a rightward direction under a long but not short interstimulus interval. This rightward shift was accompanied by a smaller standard deviation. Our key findings are best accommodated by real-time associative models. (Contains 4 figures and 3 tables.)
Descriptors: Stimuli, Cognitive Development, Animals, Conditioning, Behavior Change, Food, Testing, Responses, Models, Correlation
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A