Abstract
Prével and colleagues reported excitatory learning with a backward conditioned stimulus (CS) in a conditioned reinforcement preparation. Their results add to existing evidence of backward CSs sometimes being excitatory and were viewed as challenging the view that learning is driven by prediction error reduction, which assumes that only predictive (i.e., forward) relationships are learned. The results instead were consistent with the assumptions of both Miller's Temporal Coding Hypothesis and Wagner's Sometimes Opponent Processes (SOP) model. The present experiment extended the conditioned reinforcement preparation developed by Prével et al. to a backward second-order conditioning preparation, with the aim of discriminating between these two accounts. We tested whether a second-order CS can serve as an effective conditioned reinforcer, even when the first-order CS with which it was paired is a backward CS that elicits no responding. Evidence of conditioned reinforcement was found, despite no conditioned response (CR) being elicited by the first-order backward CS. The evidence of second-order conditioning in the absence of excitatory conditioning to the first-order CS is interpreted as a challenge to SOP. In contrast, the present results are consistent with the Temporal Coding Hypothesis and constitute a conceptual replication in humans of previous reports of excitatory second-order conditioning in rodents with a backward CS. The proposal is made that learning is driven by "discrepancy" with prior experience as opposed to " prediction error."
Highlights
A Challenge for Prediction Error Reduction Toward better understanding the necessity of prediction error in learning, we recently reported evidence of excitatory conditioning by humans with a backward conditioned stimulus (CS) in a conditioned reinforcement preparation (Prével, Rivière, Darcheville, & Urcelay, 2016)
Conditioned reinforcement was demonstrated in a choice task in which the participants allocated their responses to a response key that delivered the conditioned reinforcer in the absence of the primary reinforcer
When the backward CS was delivered alone as a consequence of completing the fixed-ratio 12 (FR12) schedule during the test phase, its presentation may have activated a representation of the US through the association learned during the conditioning treatment, which presumably made the participants expect the presentation of the US during the presses made toward completing the FR12 schedule, thereby conferring a predictive value to the operant response
Summary
A Challenge for Prediction Error Reduction Toward better understanding the necessity of prediction error in learning, we recently reported evidence of excitatory conditioning by humans with a backward conditioned stimulus (CS) in a conditioned reinforcement preparation (Prével, Rivière, Darcheville, & Urcelay, 2016). Slow decay should favor excitatory conditioning, whilst fast decay should lead to inhibitory conditioning Applying this assumption to the Prével et al (2016) experiment, and assuming that the rules for conditioned reinforcement are similar to the rules assumed for CR, the high temporal contiguity between the US and the CS should have supported the co-activation of their representative nodes in the A1 state, resulting in conditioned excitation and the conditioned reinforcement effect that was observed. In Phase 4, the critical CS2 CS1 pairings occurred, and the final phase consisted of testing whether CS2 could serve as an effective conditioned reinforcer, despite the absence of conditioned excitation to CS1 as measured in Phase 3 This test was conducted using a concurrent fixed-ratio schedule without the primary reinforcer being presented (i.e., in extinction), and like in the experiments in Barnet and Miller (1996)
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