Changes in learning about aversive nonreward accounts for ontogeny of paradoxical appetitive reward effects in the rat pup: A mathematical model (DMOD) integrates results.

Abstract

Baby rats do not show any paradoxical appetitive reward effects (e.g., faster extinction following partial than continuous reinforcement, contrast effects when large and small rewards are given) until they are at least 12-14 days old, but can learn to pattern when reward and nonreward are alternated (e.g., Amsel, 1986). These results have been puzzling, but are now successfully integrated by DMOD (Daly MODification of Rescorla and Wagner's [1972] mathematical model; Daly & Daly, 1982). It was assumed that young rats do not have the capacity to learn about aversive nonreward but slowly gain this ability between 12 and 26 days (1 parameter reflecting the rate of conditioning of aversive nonreward, beta 1 for Vav, is increased from 0 to .15 beginning at 12 days). This theoretical integration has implications for understanding behavioral and neurological development of altricial organisms, and effects of neurological damage and toxic substances.

Role of reinforcement in spaced-trial operant learning in pigeons (Columba livia).

“…For example, whereas 12–14-day-old rats show clear evidence of the PREE, they show neither the MREE nor the SNCE, both of which appear after 20 days (Amsel, 1992). Daly (1991) has successfully simulated this developmental dissociation by assuming that the PREE requires a weaker emotional reaction to unexpected nonreward than that required by the MREE and SNCE. It is possible that paradoxical performance in pigeons could be restricted to situations involving partial reinforcement, which, after all, have produced some evidence of paradoxical behavior that cannot be attributed to stimulus aftereffects from prior trials (Couvillon, Brandon, Woodard, & Bitterman, 1980; Roberts et al, 1963).…”

The sequential view: From rapidly fading stimulus traces to the organization of memory and the abstract concept of number

“…But what conditions? It should be noted that Amsel (1992) and Daly (1991), in applying frustration theory to a variety of developmental data, have postulated an intertrial mechanism to explain single alternation pattern learning in infant rats. Thus, the frustration view employs, in addition to its intratrial mechanisms, some version of an intertrial theory, albeit a vastly simplified form relative to the sequential approach.…”

“…The sequential hypothesis, however, was devised to explain a rather different class of varied reward phenomena-those clearly sensitive to the particular sequence or order in which different reward events are presented. Few hypotheses have had much to say about such clearly sequential phenomena, even today, and those which have have dealt with only a lirnited range of them, most notably single alternation pattern learning (see, e.g., Amsel, 1992;Daly, 1991). In any case, as data were collected it became clear that the distinction between clearly sequential phenomena and other phenomena was not tenable: performance under all reward schedules, even irregular schedules of rewarded and nonrewarded trials, seemed to be regulated by sequential variables.…”

Précis ofFrustration Theory: An Analysis of Dispositional Learning and Memory

“…Years ago, Capaldi's (1966Capaldi's ( , 1967 sequential theory and my own theory (Amsel, 1958(Amsel, , 1962(Amsel, , 1967 addressed some of these paradoxical effects. So have the more recent model (DMOD) of Daly and Daly (1982) and a still more recent application ofDMOD to our developmental results (Daly, 1991), both of which combine the RescorlaWagner mathematical form with assumptions taken from frustration theory.…”