The effects of response cost and species-typical behaviors on a daily time–place learning task

Abstract

Two theories that have been hypothesized to mediate acquisition in daily time-place learning (TPL) tasks were investigated in a free operant daily TPL task: the response cost hypothesis and the species-typical behavior hypothesis. One lever at the end of one of the choice arms of a T-maze provided food in the morning, and 6 h later, a lever in the other choice arm provided food. Four groups were used to assess the effect of two possible sources of response cost: physical effort of the task and costs associated with foraging ecology. One group was used to assess the effect of explicitly allowing for species-typical behaviors. If only first arm choice data were considered, there was little evidence of learning. However, both first press and percentage of presses on the correct lever prior to the first reinforcement revealed evidence of TPL in most rats tested. Unexpectedly, the high response cost groups for both of the proposed sources did not perform better than the low response cost groups. The groups that allowed animals to display species-typical behaviors performed the worst. Skip session probe trials confirmed that the majority of the rats that acquired the task were using a circadian timing strategy. The results from the present study suggest that learning in free operant daily TPL tasks might not be dependent on response cost.

Rats in a levered T-maze task show evidence of time–place discriminations in two different measures

“…In rats, although many studies have observed evidence of daily time-place learning (Aragona, Curtis, Davidson, Wang, & Stephan, 2002;Carr & Wilkie, 1997b;Deibel & Thorpe, 2013;Lukoyanov, Pereira, Mesquita, & Andrade, 2002;Mistlberger, De Groot, Bossert, & Marchant, 1996;Pizzo & Crystal, 2002, 2004b, 2006Van der Zee et al, 2008;Widman, Gordon, & Timberlake, 2000;Widman, Sermania, & Genismore, 2004), some have only done so by increasing the cost of making an error (response cost), or by altering the events associated with each daily session (Aragona et al, 2002;Boulos & Logothetis, 1990;Lukoyanov et al, 2002;Means, Arolfo, Ginn, Pence, & Watson, 2000;Thorpe, Bates, & Wilkie, 2003;Thorpe & Wilkie, 2007;Widman et al, 2000;Widman et al, 2004). Contrary to Gallistel's (1990) theory, it appears that rats might not readily associate time, place, and event information codes in all relevant situations.…”

“…An occasion-setter could facilitate time-place discriminations in this case because food is available only in one session. Rats can also acquire time-place discriminations in the T-maze when they are required to press levers located at the ends of arms for food in each daily session (Deibel & Thorpe, 2013;Mistlberger et al, 1996). However, learning is only evidenced when the first lever pressed is considered, and not the first arm entered (Deibel & Thorpe, 2013;Mistlberger et al, 1996).…”

“…Rats can also acquire time-place discriminations in the T-maze when they are required to press levers located at the ends of arms for food in each daily session (Deibel & Thorpe, 2013;Mistlberger et al, 1996). However, learning is only evidenced when the first lever pressed is considered, and not the first arm entered (Deibel & Thorpe, 2013;Mistlberger et al, 1996). As was suggested by Means and colleagues , it is possible that when they are in the start arm, rats are only aware that food is available, and thus fail to learn to go to the correct arm first.…”

Human strategies for solving a time-place learning task: The role of counting and following verbal cues

“…A possible strategy to solve these tasks could be to respond on any given option until no more food is available in that option (i.e., a win/stay-lose/shift strategy). However, a widely accepted view of these types of TPL is that daily TPL is solved by using an endogenous circadian mechanism (Biebach et al, , 1994Widman et al, 2004;Deibel and Thorpe, 2013) and that animals solving an interval TPL task rely on an interval-timing mechanism with functions that resemble a stopwatch (Crystal and Miller, 2002;Pizzo and Crystal, 2004).…”

Aprendizaje de tiempo y lugar: efectos de la duración del período de disponibilidad y de la variabilidad o constancia de la secuencia de locaciones

“…Se dice que los animales han aprendido la tarea cuando: a) la mayoría de las respuestas de los organismos se concentran en los puntos de disponibilidad temporalmente correctos; b) dejan de responder en un punto de disponibilidad antes de que este deje de ser el temporalmente correcto (i. e., anticipación del agotamiento) y c) comienzan a responder en un punto de disponibilidad antes de que el alimento pueda ser encontrado allí, es decir, se anticipan (Carr, Tan, Thorpe, & Wilkie, 2001;Thorpe & Wilkie, 2005;Wilkie, Carr, Galloway, Parker & Yamamoto, 1997). Las tareas de TPL son de dos tipos: TPL diario (Biebach et al, 1989;Deibel & Thorpe, 2013;Deibel et al, 2014;Thorpe, Deibel, Reddigan, & Fontaine, 2012;Yamaguchi, Masuda, & Yamashita, 2016) y TPL intervalar (García-Gallardo, Aguilar, Armenta, & Carpio, 2015;García-Gallardo & Carpio, 2016;Thorpe, Hallet, Murphy, Fitzpatrick, & Bakhtiar, 2012;Thorpe, Hallet, & Wilkie, 2007). La distinción fundamental entre ambas radica en la magnitud del criterio temporal que subyace a la tarea.…”