Classical heart-rate conditioning in the rat: The influence of curare and various setting operations

Conflicting reports concerning the success of classical conditioning of heart rate (HR) in curarized animals led to an experiment using a transfer design in which rats were classically conditioned either under curarized or restrained conditions. These conditions were then reversed for each group, giving a Curarized-Restrained (C-R) and a Restrained-Curarized (R-C) group. Results indicated that curare inhibits the conditional and unconditional HR response both during initial acquisition and after asymptotic levels of a HR CR have been attained. In addition, the C-R group did not acquire a CR during their later non-curarized restrained conditioning sessions, implying an inhibitory transfer from their earlier conditioning under curare. The UCRs during this period were normal for restrained rats. Analogous experimental“setting operations” prior to restrained conditioning were then explored by a second experiment which attempted to replicate the inhibitory transfer effect. The experimental operations investigated included: (1) restrained conditioning to investigate conditioned inhibition possibilities; (2) pseudo-conditioning types of randomized CS and UCS non-paired presentations to investigate associative vs. non-associative explanations; (3) CS-Only presentations to investigate possibilities that curare creates a blockage to the UCS, thus creating an inhibiting habituation to the CS; and (4) a group receiving curarization sessions, but no conditioning, to test the drug-only transfer effects. Results from the first and second experiments together indicated no inhibitory transfer effects under any prior experimental conditions except for those animals receiving classical conditioning while curarized. Only the CS-O group demonstrated any other kind of significant transfer effect; in this case a positive transfer accelerating later conditioning due to prior CS habituation sessions. These findings were discussed within the context of existing reports of curarized conditioning and setting operation effects on later conditioning, and various potential explanations and interpretations were explored.     

One-trial-a-day avoidance learning

A one-trial-a-day discrete-trial avoidance conditioning procedure run for 30 consecutive days was compared with a massed-trial procedure where Ss received 30 consecutive trials within 1 day. The Ss in both groups were equated for time each S spent in the nonshock compartment of the apparatus, number of times the transport box carrying Ss was lifted out of the nonshock compartment, and the number of times each S was handled. The main difference between groups was the intersession trial length of 24 h for the one-trial-a-day Ss. Learning was rapid for both groups. The groups did not differ reliably on six acquisition indices. The methodological advantages of the one-trial-a-day procedure and its theoretical importance were discussed.     

Effect of adrenocorticotropic hormone on conditioned avoidance in rats interpreted as state-dependent learning.

Rats were given one training trial that was followed 2 days later by one test trial in a "step-out" passive avoidance task. Each rat was injected with either adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) or placebo before training and before testing. Four groups of rats were used, representing the 4 possible training-testing injection combinations: placebo-placebo, placebo-ACTH, ACTH-placebo, and ACTH-ACTH. ACTH given in testing increased avoidance for subjects that had received ACTH in training and decreased avoidance for those that had received placebo in training.     

Language experience changes subsequent learning

What are the effects of experience on subsequent learning? We explored the effects of language-specific word order knowledge on the acquisition of sequential conditional information. Korean and English adults were engaged in a sequence learning task involving three different sets of stimuli: auditory linguistic (nonsense syllables), visual non-linguistic (nonsense shapes), and auditory non-linguistic (pure tones). The forward and backward probabilities between adjacent elements generated two equally probable and orthogonal perceptual parses of the elements, such that any significant preference at test must be due to either general cognitive biases, or prior language-induced biases. We found that language modulated parsing preferences with the linguistic stimuli only. Intriguingly, these preferences are congruent with the dominant word order patterns of each language, as corroborated by corpus analyses, and are driven by probabilistic preferences. Furthermore, although the Korean individuals had received extensive formal explicit training in English and lived in an English-speaking environment, they exhibited statistical learning biases congruent with their native language. Our findings suggest that mechanisms of statistical sequential learning are implicated in language across the lifespan, and experience with language may affect cognitive processes and later learning.