Within-subject effects of number of trials in rat conditioning procedures.

D. A. Gottlieb (2008) reported finding no effects of number of conditioning trials in a series of between-subjects magazine approach experiments, when number of sessions and total training time were held constant. This article reports 7 comparable within-subject experiments that looked for effects of number of trials in a variety of conditioning preparations. Experiments 1-3 detected effects of multiplying the number of trials by factors of 4 and 8 in a conditioned magazine approach procedure in which visual and auditory stimuli were paired with food. Experiments 4A and 4B detected effects of a factor of 4 trials in a conditioned flavor preference procedure in which flavors were paired with polycose. Experiments 5 and 6 detected an effect of a factor of 3 trials in a conditioned taste aversion procedure and in a fear conditioning procedure, respectively. Results suggest that variables other than number of trials might play important roles in determining the acquisition of conditioned responding, but effects of number of trials can be detected with sensitive enough procedures.

[1]  H. Schlosberg.  Conditioned Responses in the White Rat , 1934 .

[2]  B. Skinner,et al.  Principles of Behavior , 1944 .

[3]  G. Kimble,et al.  Classical and instrumental eyelid conditioning. , 1955, Journal of experimental psychology.

[4]  J. Deutsch,et al.  The monotonicity of the negative stimulus during learning , 1965 .

[5]  R. Rescorla,et al.  A theory of Pavlovian conditioning : Variations in the effectiveness of reinforcement and nonreinforcement , 1972 .

[6]  W. F. Prokasy,et al.  Classical conditioning II: Current research and theory. , 1972 .

[7]  N. Mackintosh.  A Theory of Attention: Variations in the Associability of Stimuli with Reinforcement , 1975 .

[8]  J. Gibbon,et al.  Temporal factors influencing the acquisition and maintenance of an autoshaped keypeck , 1975 .

[9]  M. Domjan.  The principles of learning and behavior , 1982 .

[10]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  Information processing in animals : memory mechanisms , 1983 .

[11]  R. Rescorla,et al.  Extensive training, partial reinforcement, and temporal gaps do not affect S-S learning in second-order autoshaping , 1985 .

[12]  Geoffrey E. Hinton,et al.  Learning internal representations by error propagation , 1986 .

[13]  J. Pearce.  A model for stimulus generalization in Pavlovian conditioning. , 1987, Psychological review.

[14]  E. Kehoe.  A layered network model of associative learning: learning to learn and configuration. , 1988, Psychological review.

[15]  A. R. Wagner,et al.  Evolution of a structured connectionist model of Pavlovian conditioning (AESOP). , 1989 .

[16]  S. Klein,et al.  Pavlovian conditioning and the status of traditional learning theory , 1991 .

[17]  D. A. Lieberman,et al.  Learning: Behavior and cognition , 1990 .

[18]  M. Gluck,et al.  Hippocampal mediation of stimulus representation: A computational theory , 1993, Hippocampus.

[19]  M. Papini,et al.  Response Competition and the Trial-Spacing Effect in Autoshaping with Rats , 1994 .

[20]  E. Kehoe,et al.  Classical conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane response can be fast or slow: Implications for Lennartz and Weinberger’s (1992) two-factor theory , 1994, Psychobiology.

[21]  N. Schmajuk.  Animal Learning and Cognition: A Neural Network Approach , 1997 .

[22]  P. Holland.  Amount of training affects associatively-activated event representation , 1998, Neuropharmacology.

[23]  Theoretical mechanisms underlying the trial-spacing effect in Pavlovian fear conditioning. , 1999 .

[24]  N. Kawai.  The number of trial upon the effects of US duration in conditioned licking suppression with rats , 2000 .

[25]  C. Gallistel,et al.  Time, rate, and conditioning. , 2000, Psychological review.

[26]  M. Bouton,et al.  Memory priming and trial spacing effects in Pavlovian learning , 2004, Learning & behavior.

[27]  Extinction and retraining of simultaneous and successive flavor conditioning , 2004, Learning & behavior.

[28]  C. Gallistel,et al.  The learning curve: implications of a quantitative analysis. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[29]  Daniel A. Gottlieb.  Acquisition with partial and continuous reinforcement in rat magazine approach. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.

[30]  M. Bouton.  Learning and Behavior: A Contemporary Synthesis , 2006 .

[31]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  Sometimes-competing retrieval (SOCR): a formalization of the comparator hypothesis. , 2007, Psychological review.

[32]  M. Gluck,et al.  Learning and Memory: From Brain to Behavior , 2007 .

[33]  Daniel A. Gottlieb.  Is the number of trials a primary determinant of conditioned responding? , 2008, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.