Runway performance of goldfish as a function of complete and incomplete reduction in amount of reward

Gonzalez, R. C.; Potts, Alcine; Pitcoff, Katherine; Bitterman, M. E.

doi:10.3758/bf03328972

Cited by 104 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…Some puzzling experiments with goldfish have been reported in which performance was entirely unaffected by a shift from a large to a small reward (e.g. , Gonzalez et al, 1972) but the superior performance of unshifted control animals trained with a large as compared…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Tests of the equal-asymptote assumption

Buchanan

Bitterman

1989

Animal Learning & Behavior

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In Experiments 1 and 2, honeybee foragers visiting the laboratory were fed on targets of two different colors, one containing 5 ILl and the other containing 20 ILl of 50% sucrose solution. The targets were presented singly in quasi-random sequences on the training visits, after which preference was measured in an unrewarded choice test. In Experiment 1, 16 differentially rewarded training trials with each color were followed by the same number of trials with the coloramount relation reversed; no preference for either color was found in the subsequent choice test. In Experiment 2, 20 differentially rewarded training trials with each color-enough to produce a clear preference for the 20-ILI color when given directly after pretraining-were given after 10 feedings to repletion on each color that were calculated to generate near-asymptotic associative strength; no preference for either color was found in the subsequent choice test. In Experiment 3, there were 12 feedings to repletion on one color and, on the other, 12 feedings to repletion followed by 15 trials with a small (5 ILl) reward; no preference was found in a subsequent choice test. The results of all three experiments support a nonrepresentational interpretation of the role of amount of reward in the learning of honeybees.In a continuing series of experiments on learning in honeybees as compared with learning in vertebrates (Bitterman, 1988), we began recently to study amount of reward (Buchanan & Bitterman, 1988), an important parameter oflearning in vertebrates (Mackintosh, 1974). Some previous work hadsuggested that learning in honeybees might be independent of amount of reward (Menzel & Erber, 1972), but the method employed in that work seemed inadequate for a variety of reasons which need not be considered again here. Our own method was to train honeybees with two targets of different colors that were presented successively in quasi-random sequences, one target always containing 5 ILl of a 50% sucrose solution, the other containing 20 ILl of the same solution, and then to measure persistence of response to the targets in an extinction test, that is, when they no longer contained sucrose. If the number of training trials with the two targets was the same, the animals responded more in extinction to the ZO-/Ll target than to the 5-ILI target, but the difference in amount of reward could be offset by a difference in frequency. If the number of 5-1L1 training trials was at least three times the number of 20-1L1 trials, the animals responded more in extinction to the 5-1L1 target; if the number of 5-1L1 training trials was twice the number of ZD-ILI trials, the animals responded equally often to the two targets in extinction.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Tests of the equal-asymptote assumption

Buchanan

Bitterman

1989

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…The wide range of conditions under which successive negative contrast has failed to appear in competent experiments with goldfish (Bitterman 1984;Couvillon & Bitterman 1985;Gonzalez et al 1974;Gonzalez et al 1972;Mackintosh 1971) is hardly suggested by Macphail's "review." Several types of reward have, in fact, been used (Noyes fish pellets, live Tubifex worms, and liquid foods differing in quantity or in quality), and a variety of responses have been measured (starting, swimming, and goal-entry in the runway, striking a target separate from the feeding place, and consummatory responding at a liquid feeder).…”

Section: B6k6sy Laboratory Of Neurobiology University Of Hawaii Honmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Congruent results obtained in experiments of other designs should be considered as well. Rats extinguish more rapidly after training with large as compared with small reward (Gonzalez & Bitterman 1969;Hulse 1958;Wagner 1961) -a special case of successive negative contrast -but resistance to extinction in goldfish increases with amount of reward (Gonzalez et al 1972); it was an early indication of this difference between rats and goldfish that prompted the Lowes experiment. Successive negative contrast is also a factor in the spacedtrials partial reinforcement effect found in rats trained with large reward (Gonzalez & Bitterman 1969;Hulse 1958;Wagner 1961).…”

Section: B6k6sy Laboratory Of Neurobiology University Of Hawaii Honmentioning

confidence: 99%

Editorial Commentary

1987

Behav Brain Sci

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Abstract:Recent decades have seen a number of influential attacks on the comparative psychology of learning and intelligence. Two specific charges have been that the use of distantly related species has prevented us from making valid evolutionary inferences and that learning mechanisms are species-specific adaptations to ecological niches and hence not properly comparable between species. It is argued here that work using distantly related species may yield valuable insights into the structure of intelligence and that the question of whether or not learning mechanisms are niche-specific is one which can only be answered by comparative work in "nonnatural" situations. The problems involved in defining and assessing intelligence are discussed. Experimental work has not succeeded in demonstrating differences in intellect among nonhuman vertebrates. Hence the null hypothesis -that there are no differences in intellect among nonhuman vertebrates -should be adopted; the superiority of human intelligence stems from our possessing a species-specific language-acquisition device. One implication of the null hypothesis is that general problem-solving capacity is independent of niche-specific adaptations. A second implication is that problem-solving may involve relatively simple mechanisms; association formation in particular may play a central role in nonhuman intelligence, allowing the successful detection of causal links between events. Causality is a constraint common to all ecological niches.

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“…Gonzalez et al (1974) reviewed a variety of sources of evidence that suggest that goldfish are capable of learning the sensory consequences of responding under optimal conditions; fish show patterning, for example, in single alternation of reward and nonreward if the trials are highly massed and training is extensive. Although no fish contrast experiments have been conducted under identical conditions to those reported by Gonzalez et al (1972) to be effective for aftereffect learning in fish, the reasonable inference drawn from the fish comparisons was that it is doubtful that generalization decrement is the mechanism of successive contrast.…”

Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SuNCE. Reward reduction in goldfish has consistently failed to produce successive contrast (Gonzalez, Ferry, & Powers, 1974;Gonzalez, Potts, Pitcoff, & Bitterman, 1972;Lowes & Bitterman, 1967;Mackintosh, 1971). Gonzalez et al (1974) reviewed a variety of sources of evidence that suggest that goldfish are capable of learning the sensory consequences of responding under optimal conditions; fish show patterning, for example, in single alternation of reward and nonreward if the trials are highly massed and training is extensive.…”

Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduction in sucrose reward magnitude without generalization decrement

Burns

1978

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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Groups of albino rats were trained for 24 days in a straight runway with one of two different liquid sucrose concentrations, 30% or 3%, as reward. Training trials were administered 2/day with an intertrial interval (lTI) of 3·5 min. This preshift phase was followed by an additional 24 days in which both groups received the 3% solution. A significant main effect of reward magnitude developed early in the preshift phase and persisted throughout the postshift phase. Since the number of daily trials and the ITI employed in this experiment have been shown in other designs to be optimal for the conditioning of the sensory consequences of responding with sucrose rewards, the data argue against a generalization decrement account of the successive contrast effect.

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Runway performance of goldfish as a function of complete and incomplete reduction in amount of reward

Abstract: Two experiments are reported in which goldfish failed to show the inverse relation between resistance to extinction and amount of reward and failed also to show the depression effect under conditions analogous to those which most clearly produce these effects in rats.

Cited by 104 publications

References 12 publications

Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Tests of the equal-asymptote assumption

Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Tests of the equal-asymptote assumption

Editorial Commentary

Reduction in sucrose reward magnitude without generalization decrement

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