Working for beverages without being thirsty: Human Pavlovian-instrumental transfer despite outcome devaluation
Publication date: August 2018 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 63 Author(s): Matteo De Tommaso, Tommaso Mastropasqua, Massimo Turatto The incentive-motivational salience acquired by a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS) is reflected by its ability to strengthen the performance of a separately learned instrumental action exerted to obtain an outcome, a phenomenon known as Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer (PIT). By means of a PIT paradigm, the present study addressed whether the CS motivational properties vary dynamically with the value of the associated outcome. Previous studies on human PIT and outcome devaluatio...
Source: Learning and Motivation - February 4, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Evaluating group activity schedules to promote social play in children with autism
Publication date: Available online 27 December 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Dana M. Gadaire, Katrina Bartell, Jamie Villacorta We evaluated the effects of group activity schedules on social engagement among children with autism spectrum disorders. Although activity schedules are often applied to dyads, we assigned children to small groups (e.g., 3–4 children) to increase the number of available play partners and potential social validity of the intervention. We also compared the effects of group activity schedules with a similar intervention consisting exclusively of therapist-delivered prompts. Re...
Source: Learning and Motivation - December 28, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Retention intervals enhance associative competition produced by a preexposed CS
Publication date: August 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 63 Author(s): Diana Klakotskaia, Rachel A. Richardson, Paige N. Michener, Todd R. Schachtman Earlier studies have shown that a latent inhibitor is poor at competing for learning with another conditioned stimulus on a compound conditioning trial. Previous research also has shown that the poor conditioned response produced to a latent inhibitor can be reversed by a retention interval placed after conditioning and prior to testing the conditioned response. In the present conditioned taste aversion experiments, a CS flavor (“A”) was given CS-alone p...
Source: Learning and Motivation - December 5, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Pre-exposure and retrieval effects on generalization of contextual fear
Publication date: August 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 63 Author(s): Dieuwke Sevenster, Lucas de Oliveira Alvares, Rudi D’Hooge The degree of generalization from a fearful context to other contexts is determined by precision of the original fear memory. Experiences before and after fear learning affect memory precision. Pre-exposure to a similar context before context conditioning results in increased generalization to the similar context. In contrast, exposure to the conditioning context after fear learning reduces fear generalization. In the current study we aimed to investigate whether the events be...
Source: Learning and Motivation - December 5, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Relapse of conditioned taste aversion in rats exposed to constant and graded extinction treatments
Publication date: August 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 63 Author(s): Sadahiko Nakajima, Takaya Ogai, Ayano Sasaki In a generalized bait-shyness preparation of rats, the graded extinction procedure was not effective in preventing the relapse of conditioned aversion to a target taste. The present study is a replication of this finding in a conventional taste aversion preparation using a sodium chloride (NaCl) solution as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and an injection of poisonous lithium chloride (LiCl) as the unconditioned stimulus (US). After aversive conditioning of salty taste by a CS-US pairing, its e...
Source: Learning and Motivation - November 16, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Effects of extended extinction and multiple extinction contexts on ABA renewal
Publication date: August 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 63 Author(s): Kirra A. Krisch, Siavash Bandarian-Balooch, David L. Neumann The return of fear following exposure therapy suggests that extinction does not result in a permanent unlearning of the association between a conditional stimulus (CS) and an unconditional stimulus (US). One proposed mechanism of return of fear is ABA renewal in which a CS is paired with a US in context A, presented alone in context B, and followed by test trials in context A. The current study examined the effects of extended extinction and multiple extinction contexts on ABA...
Source: Learning and Motivation - November 15, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Comparing illusion of control and superstitious behavior: Rate of responding influences judgment of control in a free-operant procedure
The objective of this experiment was to study similarities between superstitious behavior and illusion of control. We used different motivational instructions to generate high and low rates of responding and exposed participants to noncontingent reinforcement in order to evaluate superstitious behavior and illusion of control. College students (n=40) responded over three 10-min sessions in a computer-based free operant procedure that alternated signaled periods of noncontingent presentation of points (VT schedule) and periods in which the points were not presented (extinction, EXT). In one group of participants, points wer...
Source: Learning and Motivation - November 8, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Duration of wheel-running reinforcement: Effects on reinforcement value and motivation in free-feeding and food-deprived rats
Publication date: November 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 60 Author(s): Terry W. Belke, W. David Pierce, Ian E.A. Cathcart Ten (pair housed) female Long-Evans rats were exposed to 5s, 30s, and 90s wheel-running reinforcement durations on a response-initiated variable interval 20s schedule as food deprivation was manipulated. On free feeding, never-deprived rats showed low wheel running and lever-pressing rates with long postreinforcement pauses (PRPs) for the 5-s reinforcement duration. Subsequently, when food deprived (Deprived 1), rats showed no effect of reinforcement duration on all measures. Under a ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - October 22, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Examining the influence of CS duration and US density on cue-potentiated feeding through analyses of licking microstructure
Publication date: Available online 7 October 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Alexander W. Johnson In the current study, groups of mice were trained with either short (20s) or long (120s) conditioned stimulus (CS) durations associated with different rates of sucrose unconditioned stimulus (US) delivery, to examine whether different behavioral forms of cue-potentiated feeding in sated mice would be evoked. In training mice received presentations of an auditory CS for 20s during which a sucrose US was delivered at a density of 1/9s (Group-20-s). A second group of mice received an auditory CS for 120s and a U...
Source: Learning and Motivation - October 7, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Geometric vs. non-geometric information. Explaining male rats ’ selective preferences in a navigation task
This study shows for the first time that changing the salience of a landmark can strongly affect the preference for a geometric cue over a landmark cue in male rats. (Source: Learning and Motivation)
Source: Learning and Motivation - September 28, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Working memory decline in normal aging: Memory load and representational demands affect performance
Publication date: Available online 25 September 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Giuliana Klencklen, Pamela Banta Lavenex, Catherine Brandner, Pierre Lavenex Normal aging is associated with numerous changes in cognitive capacities, including an overall decline in working memory performance. Nevertheless, whereas some neuropsychological evaluations have suggested that visuo-spatial working memory may exhibit a greater age-related decline than verbal working memory, other assessments made in real-world tasks, or in tasks with higher memory loads, have suggested that age-related declines in working memory ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - September 26, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Differential reinforcement of low rate responding in social skills training
Publication date: Available online 18 September 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Dana M. Gadaire, Genevieve Marshall, Elanor Brissett Social skills are unique in that excessive rates of responding may be just as socially undesirable as deficient responding. Furthermore, most social skills training programs utilize group formats such that one intervention (e.g., differential reinforcement) is applied universally to children with varied behavioral repertoires. Following exposure to continuous schedules of reinforcement for pro-social behaviors, we observed excessive levels of peer-directed compliments and ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - September 20, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Derived insensitivity: Rule-based insensitivity to contingencies propagates through equivalence
Publication date: August 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 59 Author(s): Jean- Louis Monestès, W. James Greville, Nic Hooper Rule-governed behaviours enable rapid acquisition of appropriate and often complex behaviour in novel contexts; however, this capacity can also make individuals insensitive to environmental contingencies. This problem may be exacerbated if rules propagate from one context to another through derived relational responding. Here we assessed whether insensitivity due to rule-following would transfer to stimuli that were never directly associated with that rule, by means of combinatorial e...
Source: Learning and Motivation - August 31, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Reinforcement of a reinforcing behavior: Effect of sucrose concentration on wheel-running rate
Publication date: August 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 59 Author(s): Terry W. Belke, W. David Pierce, Alexandra C. Fisher, Mandy R. LeCocq Wheel running, unlike typical operant behavior, generates its own automatic reinforcement that alters the control exerted by extrinsic reinforcement on wheel running. The current study investigated the implications of the automatic reinforcement of wheel running by arranging different sucrose concentrations as extrinsic reinforcement for operant wheel running in ad-lib fed and food-deprived rats. Eleven female Long Evans rats ran on fixed revolution 30 schedules that...
Source: Learning and Motivation - August 31, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Social inequality aversion in mice: Analysis with stress-induced hyperthermia and behavioral preference
Publication date: August 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 59 Author(s): Shigeru Watanabe Humans have a sense of fairness and consequently are averse to inequality conditions. Recently, animal researchers suggested that some non-human animals also have inequality aversion. The author used stress-induced hyperthermia (SIH) to examine inequality aversion in mice. Experiment 1 measured the change in body surface temperature of mice under the condition of equality or inequality of food delivery. The results demonstrated that mice exhibited a large increment in body surface temperature when given a small piece of c...
Source: Learning and Motivation - August 31, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
