Differential conditioning as a function of exposure time to discriminative and nondiscriminative cues preceding response

TLDR: It is suggested that preresponse cues only influence a frustrative depression to S—, and that for unknown reasons such a depression failed to appear in this study.

Abstract: Five groups of rats received differential conditioning to large and small reward in a straight runway. Three groups were confined to startbox for 0, 2, or 8 sec prior to the opportunity to traverse the runway, with no preresponse discriminative cues to signal reward magnitude until admission to the runway. Two additional groups received the discriminative cues for 2 or 8 sec while confined in the startbox. All Ss learned the discrimination, though the sharp depression in performance to S— found in certain other studies failed to appear. Discriminative cue presentation in the startbox did not influence performance. Together, these facts suggest that preresponse cues only influence a frustrative depression to S—, and that for unknown reasons such a depression failed to appear in this study. Startbox confinement depressed performance to both rewards, with longer durations producing greater depressions.