Win-Stay Behaviour in the Rat

Evenden, J. L.; Robbins, T.W.

doi:10.1080/14640748408402190

Cited by 46 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…It is difficult to compare the accuracies of rats in a T-maze with those in an operant box, because the rats are unable to use orienting cues to facilitate bridging the ITI in a T-maze. Because this task requires memory for the last response and its consequence, the T-maze procedure may be disruptive, because it involves moving the animal from the goal box to the start box between trials and involves a longer delay between the choice response and reinforcement (see Evenden & Robbins, 1984;Gittis et al, 1988;Haig et al, 1983). Thus, the present comparison of rats responding with a nose-poke in an operant chamber offers the most similar comparison to pigeons pecking.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Furthermore, when rats were trained in a T-maze to win-stay (i.e., to return to the same arm) versus win-shift, they initially showed a bias to shift, visiting the previously unvisited arm early in training and showing reduced accuracy (Haig, Rawlins, Olton, Mead, & Taylor, 1983); this pattern of results has been found in adult rats in a T-maze (Haig et al, 1983), as well as in young rats in a Y-maze (Gittis et al, 1988). Additionally, an experiment by Evenden and Robbins (1984), training rats in either an operant box with levers or a Y-maze, indicated that the rats in the operant chamber initially tended to stay, whereas the rats in a Y-maze showed a high level of shift behavior that changed to stay behavior with training. These results suggest that rats' response biases are flexible with training but show different initial levels of stay and shift behavior, depending on the apparatus.…”

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confidence: 93%

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Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

2015

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The midsession reversal task involves a simple simultaneous discrimination that predictably reverses midway through a session. Under various conditions, pigeons generally both anticipate the reversal and perseverate once it has occurred, whereas rats tend to make very few of either kind of error. In the present research, we investigated the hypothesis that the difference in performance between rats and pigeons is related to the nature of the responses made. We hypothesized that rats could have been better at bridging the intertrial interval by keeping the relevant paw close to the lever while eating, whereas the pigeons had to remove their beak from the response key and insert it into the feeder, thus making it difficult to mediate the response last made. In the present experiment, in successive phases, rats were trained to leverpress or nose-poke on a 40-trial midsession reversal, an 80-trial midsession reversal, and a variable-location reversal. The results showed that the leverpress group acquired the task faster than the nose-poke group, but that both groups reached comparable levels of performance. Thus, the difference in the natures of the responses cannot fully account for the differences in accuracy between rats and pigeons. Additionally, differences in the types of errors made by the two groups suggest that the nature of the response plays different roles in the performance of this task.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

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confidence: 93%

Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

2015

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“…Our current knowledge of molecular pat-terns of responding on simple concurrent and concurrent-chains schedules may be summarized as follows: When the probability of reinforcement is independent of the location of the previous reinforcer, such as occurs when interdependent scheduling is used, positive recency or win-stay behavior occurs on simple concurrent schedules (Evenden & Robbins, 1984;Menlove, 1975;Morgan, 1974;Shimp, 1966) whereas a transient elevation in preference for the key with the shorter terminal link occurs on concurrent-chains schedules (at least with equal initial links). When the probability of reinforcement does depend on the location of the previous reinforcer, as in the case of independent scheduling, negative recency or win-shift behavior is observed on concurrent-chains schedules, whereas the only evidence to date indicates that in simple concurrent schedules relative response rate is independent of which response was just reinforced (Nevin, 1969 (Figures 2, 3, 5, and 7), raises the possibility that the molar initiallink effect might be an artifact of schedule duration.…”

Section: Inspection Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional evidence that relative response rate in the initial links of a concurrent-chains schedule may vary systematically with time within a given exposure to the initial links is provided by the existence of nonuniform relative response rates on simple concurrent schedules. Evenden and Robbins (1984), Menlove (1975), Morgan (1974), and Shimp (1966) all reported a positive recency effect of reinforcement on immediately subsequent responding. Menlove, using a standard concurrent VI VI schedule, found that the relative frequency of responding, calculated with respect to the key with the higher density of reinforcement, was elevated in the first 5 s following reinforcement on the high-density key whereas the relative response rate during the first 5 s after reinforcement on the low-density key was either depressed or equal to its overall average value.…”

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confidence: 99%

A Molecular Analysis of Choice on Concurrent‐chains Schedules

Fantino

Royalty

1987

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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Six pigeons responded on concurrent-chains schedules with either independent or interdependent equal variable-interval schedules in the initial links and unequal variable-interval schedules, always in a 2:1 ratio, in the terminal links. Relative response rates in the initial links increased across conditions as initial-link duration was shortened and decreased across conditions as terminal-link duration was shortened, replicating previous findings. Responses in the initial links were recorded in 5-s bins, and local or molecular relative response rates were calculated in order to ascertain how relative response rate varied as a function of time since the onset of the initial links. Two distinct molecular patterns were found. With interdependent initial links, relative response rates for the preferred key were elevated for the first 10 or 20s of the initial links and then declined to an asymptotic value. With independent initial links, a negative recency effect was found similar to that reported by Killeen (1970). These two molecular patterns were related to the different momentary reinforcement probabilities resulting from independent and interdependent scheduling.Key words: choice, molecular analysis, conditioned reinforcement, delay-reduction hypothesis, concurrent-chains schedules, variable-interval schedules, forced-choice procedure, key peck, pigeonsThe concurrent-chains schedule has been used widely in research during the last 25 years (see Fantino, 1977, for a review). Although it was originally developed for study of conditioned reinforcement (Autor, 1960(Autor, , 1969, the concurrent-chains schedule has more often been used to investigate preference between different schedules of reinforcement, a task to which the procedure seems particularly well suited because it allows a measure of choice uncontaminated by the particular patterns of responding generated by the schedules that are chosen. In this procedure, the subject responds on two concurrently available alternatives (the initial links or "choice phase") usually correlated with equal variable-interval (VI) schedules. Responses on each alternative occasionally produce another stimulus, correlated with entry into the terminal link of the chain on that alternative (the "outcome phase"). Responses in the terminal link are reinforced with food. The independent variable has generally involved some difference in the conditions arranged during the terminal links, such as differing rates of reinforcement. in-145 1987, 48, 145-159 NUMBER 1 (JULY)

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“…Adequate explanations for radial maze behavior are likely to be based on a combination of ecological (Olton, 1982;Yoerg & Kamil, 1982), cognitive (Olton, 1982;Roberts, 1984), and learning-theory (Evenden & Robbins, 1984; Gaffan et aI., 1983) factors.…”

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confidence: 99%

Variations in radial maze performance under different levels of food and water deprivation

Dale

Roberts

1986

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Four groups of rats were tested on an eight-arm radial maze under a free-choice procedure. The subjects were maintained at either 80% or 100% of their preexperimental free-feeding weights through restricted access to either food or water. Water-deprived subjects received water in the maze; food-deprived subjects received food. Water-deprived subjects learned the task faster than food-deprived subjects. The four groups developed different response patterns. These were measured by the mean transition size, the average angular distance (in 45°units) between consecutively chosen arms. Rats foraging for food and water developed different search strategies, with water-deprived subjects exhibiting lower mean transition sizes. When the subjects were given three consecutive trials, 2 min apart, choice accuracy declined across trials, although performance on the last two trials improved across days. The groups' mean transition sizes remained different, and were constant over trials and days. Thus, the test procedures differentially affected choice accuracy and response patterning.

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Win-Stay Behaviour in the Rat

Cited by 46 publications

References 16 publications

Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

A Molecular Analysis of Choice on Concurrent‐chains Schedules

Variations in radial maze performance under different levels of food and water deprivation

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