Conditioned reinforcement and information theory reconsidered

Shahan, Timothy A.; Cunningham, Paul J.

doi:10.1002/jeab.142

Cited by 31 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…In particular, the temporal information that a stimulus provides about a reinforcer is critical in establishing the conditioned response patterns to that stimulus [55–58]. Experiment 1 considered how adult and adolescent rats learned about a cue that acquired excitatory and inhibitory properties in sequence.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age differences in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning and extinction in rats

Meyer

Bucci

2016

Physiology & Behavior

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Mounting evidence indicates that adolescents exhibit heightened sensitivity to rewards and reward-related cues compared to adults, and that adolescents are often unable to exert behavioral control in the face of such cues. Moreover, differences in reward processing during adolescence have been linked to heightened risk taking and impulsivity. However, little is known about the processes by which adolescents learn about the appetitive properties of environmental stimuli that signal reward. To address this, Pavlovian conditioning procedures were used to test for differences in excitatory conditioning between adult and adolescent rats using various schedules of reinforcement. Specifically, separate cohorts of adult and adolescent rats were trained under conditions of consistent (continuous) or intermittent (partial) reinforcement. We found that the acquisition of anticipatory responding to a continuously-reinforced cue proceeded similarly in adolescents and adults. In contrast, responding increased at a greater rate in adolescents compared to adults during presentations of a partially-reinforced cue. We subsequently compared the ability of adolescent and adult rats to dynamically adjust the representation of a reward-predictive cue during extinction trials, in which a secondary inhibitory representation is acquired for the previously-reinforced stimulus. We observed significant age differences in the ability to flexibly update cue representations during extinction, in that the appetitive properties of cues with a history of either continuous or partial reinforcement persisted to a greater extent in adolescents relative to adults.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age differences in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning and extinction in rats

Meyer

Bucci

2016

Physiology & Behavior

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“…Of critical note, in this approach temporal information is conveyed only by food-predictive signals. Signals for extinction are not considered a source of information, thus avoiding a difficulty in prior attempts at relating information theory and conditioned reinforcement (Shahan & Cunningham, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Suboptimal choice and initial‐link requirement

Pisklak

McDevitt

Dunn

2019

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Pigeons (n = 14) were trained in a concurrent-chains suboptimal choice procedure that tested the effect of an increased ratio requirement in the initial links. Fixed-ratio 1 and 25 conditions were manipulated within subjects in a counterbalanced order. In all conditions, distinct terminal-link stimuli on a suboptimal alternative signaled either primary reinforcement (20% of the time) or extinction (80% of the time). On an optimal alternative, two distinct terminal-link stimuli each signaled a 50% chance of primary reinforcement. Preference for the suboptimal alternative was significantly attenuated, and in some birds completely reversed, by the larger response requirement irrespective of condition order. This larger response requirement also generated a notable increase in between-subject variability. A measure of cumulative choice responding is introduced to mitigate the problems associated with traditional session averages. Ordinal predictions of some current theories of suboptimal choice are also considered in light of the results.

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“…In the second phase, one of the stimuli (S+) remained correlated with reinforcement, whereas the other stimulus (S‐) was correlated with extinction. On the basis of previously reported findings and conditioned‐reinforcement theory (e.g., Dinsmoor, ; Fantino, ; Shahan & Cunningham, ; Tomanari, ), we expected S+ to become a conditioned reinforcer during this phase, and therefore observing of this stimulus to increase. The third phase was a return to baseline.…”

Section: The Pupil Platformmentioning

confidence: 96%

Picanço

Tonneau

2018

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Tracking eye movements is being increasingly recognized as a valuable source of information about stimulus control. So far, however, eye-tracking research has suffered from accessibility issues, with expensive hardware and closed-source software. In this article we review Pupil©, an eye-tracking platform developed by Pupil Labs and that combines open-source software with low-cost hardware components. We offer concrete recommendations about Pupil use in stimulus-control research and we show how the software can be extended to automatize the analysis of gaze data. Finally, we present the results of a study of visual discrimination and conditioned reinforcement conducted with Pupil, establishing the usefulness of this platform as a research tool in behavior analysis.

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Conditioned reinforcement and information theory reconsidered

Cited by 31 publications

References 43 publications

Age differences in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning and extinction in rats

Age differences in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning and extinction in rats

Suboptimal choice and initial‐link requirement

A low‐cost platform for eye‐tracking research: Using Pupil© in behavior analysis

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