| Literature DB >> 19594288 |
Dale N Swanton1, Cynthia M Gooch, Matthew S Matell.
Abstract
Rats were trained on a mixed fixed-interval schedule in which stimulus A (tone or light) indicated food availability after 10 s and stimulus B (the other stimulus) indicated food availability after 20 s. Testing consisted of nonreinforced probe trials in which the stimulus was A, B, or the compound AB. On single-stimulus trials, rats responded with a peak of activity around the programmed reinforced time. On compound-stimulus trials, rats showed a single scalar peak of responding at a time midway between those for stimulus A and B. These results suggest that when provided with discrepant information regarding the temporal predictability of reinforcement, rats compute an average of the scheduled reinforcement times for the A and B stimuli and use this average to generate an expectation of reward for the compound stimuli.Entities:
Mesh:
Year: 2009 PMID: 19594288 PMCID: PMC2771418 DOI: 10.1037/a0014021
Source DB: PubMed Journal: J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process ISSN: 0097-7403