Conditioning of the nictitating membrane response of the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) as a function of length and degree of variation of intertrial interval

Abstract

The study involved three experiments. The first. a parametric investigation of nictitating membrane conditioning with eight constant intertrial intervals (lTls) between 5 and 120 sec, orthogonal to interstimulus intervals (ISis) of 250 and 750 msec plus three temporal conditioning control groups, revealed that performance improved rapidly with increasing ITI but stabilized at relatively low ITI values. At 75Q-msec lSI, a decrement in performance was found at 60•sec IT!. Experiment II, using constant ITIs of 45-75 sec in 5-sec steps, at 75Q-mseclSI confirmed the trend toward a performance decrement around 60 sec, although the trend was weak and highly variable. Experiment III evaluated the differences in performance between constant and variable ITI, using three ITI values and three conditions of variation at each value. Findings were discussed in terms of differences in conditioning resulting from both length and degree of variation of ITI and some subtle effects which may emerge only when constant ITIs are used.

Oscillatory brain states and learning: Impact of hippocampal theta-contingent training

“…Both have affected acquisition rates in nictitating membrane͞eyeblink conditioning (34)(35)(36). Therefore, to rule out the possibility of these two factors contributing to any observed learning rate differences between the experimental groups, two groups of yoked control animals were run (n ϭ 5 per group).…”

Interaction between Amount and Pattern of Training in the Induction of Intermediate- and Long-Term Memory for Sensitization in Aplysia

“…For example, memory retention is highly sensitive not only to the total amount of training but also to the pattern of trials used during training. In particular, in a variety of tasks across species ranging from invertebrates to humans, training trials distributed over time (spaced training) typically lead to superior retention compared with training in which trials are presented with little or no rest interval (massed training) (Ebbinghaus 1885;Carew et al 1972;Salafia et al 1973;Lefebvre and Sabourin 1977;Fanselow and Tighe 1988;Tully et al 1994;Hermitte et al 1999;Muzzio et al 1999;Menzel et al 2001). Perhaps the most interesting feature of the superiority of spaced over massed training is that it is not a general effect for all temporal domains of memory but rather appears to become more pronounced with longer-lasting memories (e.g., Carew et al 1972;Tully et al 1994;Menzel 2001).…”

Efficient conditioned inhibition of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response with massed training

“…Thus, for excitatory conditioning of the rabbit's nictitating membrane response (NMR), rate of acquisition is inversely related to number of trials per daily session (Hupka, Massaro, & Moore, 1968;Kehoe & Gormezano, 1974;Salafia, Terry, & Daston, 1975). A similar inverse relationship has been noted for intertrial intervals (ITIs) over a range of 5 to 120 sec (Salafia, Mis, Terry, Bartosiak, & Daston, 1973). Finally, Frey and Gavin (1975, Experiment 1), using a rabbit eye-blink preparation, found the strength of the CR to increase monotonically over "incubation" intervals ranging from 5 min to 24 h.…”