Acquisition and extinction of facilitation in the C57BL/6J mouse

Pavlovian biconditional discrimination learning in the C57BL/6J Mouse

“…The goal of Experiment 2A was to examine the role of trial order in mediating the discrepancy between successful acquisition of a contextual biconditional discrimination in Experiment 1 and the failure to find evidence of biconditional discrimination learning with discrete cues in Experiment 5 of Fetsko et al (2005). In contextual biconditional discriminations, it is routine to partition daily training into two sequential sessions such that subjects are exposed to one pair of reinforcement contingencies in one context (e.g., A: X+, Y−) and then the reverse reinforcement contingencies in the other context (e.g., B: Y+, X−), as they were in Experiment 1.…”

“…In contextual biconditional discriminations, it is routine to partition daily training into two sequential sessions such that subjects are exposed to one pair of reinforcement contingencies in one context (e.g., A: X+, Y−) and then the reverse reinforcement contingencies in the other context (e.g., B: Y+, X−), as they were in Experiment 1. In contrast, all four trials types are intermixed in a single session in the conventional discrete cue biconditional discrimination (e.g., AX+, AY−, BY+, BX−), as they were in Experiment 5 of Fetsko et al (2005).…”

“…Our interest in Pavlovian biconditional discrimination learning stems in part from a previous report from our laboratory of a failure to detect Pavlovian biconditional discrimination learning in the C57BL/6J mouse (Fetsko et al, 2005). To our knowledge, this is the only study in the literature that has tried to demonstrate Pavlovian biconditional discrimination learning in mice.…”

“…To our knowledge, this is the only study in the literature that has tried to demonstrate Pavlovian biconditional discrimination learning in mice. Using a discrete cue biconditional discrimination procedure, Fetsko et al (2005) presented mice with four binary compounds made up of auditory stimuli, either a white noise (N) or tone (T), embedded in the last 5 seconds of 15-sec visual stimuli, either an overhead houselight (L1) or a panel light (L2). Food delivery coincided with the offset of two of the four stimulus compounds (L1-N+, L2-T+); the other two stimulus compounds were nonreinforced (L1-T−, L2-N−).…”

“…Fetsko et al (2005) identified three factors that might facilitate acquisition of this type of discrimination. Specifically, they proposed that the properties of the stimuli, the order of trials, and the identity of the food outcomes might be manipulated to reduce task difficulty.…”