The acquisition of instrumental responding can be supported by primary reinforcers or by conditional (also known as secondary) reinforcers that themselves have an association to a primary reinforcer. While primary reinforcement has been heavily studied for the past century, the associative basis of conditioned reinforcement has received comparatively little experimental examination. Yet conditioned reinforcement has been employed as an important behavioral assay in neuroscience studies, and thus an analysis of its associative basis is called for. We evaluated the extent to which an element from a previously trained compound would facilitate conditioned reinforcement. Three groups of rats received Pavlovian conditioning with a visual-auditory compound cue followed by food. After training, a lever was made available that, when pressed, produced the same trained compound (group compound), only the auditory cue (group element), or a novel auditory cue (group control). The rats in group compound pressed the lever at a higher rate than did rats in either group element or group control, demonstrating a strong conditioned reinforcement effect only in group compound. Interestingly, there was almost no difference in responding between group element and group control. The implications of this generalization decrement in conditioned reinforcement are discussed-particularly as they relate to research in behavioral neuroscience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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复合元素几乎不会引起条件强化。

工具性反应的获得可以由初级强化物或条件（也称为次级）强化物支持，这些强化物本身与初级强化物有关联。虽然在过去的一个世纪中对初级强化进行了大量研究，但条件强化的关联基础却很少受到实验检验。然而，条件强化已被用作神经科学研究中的重要行为分析，因此需要对其关联基础进行分析。我们评估了来自先前训练的化合物的元素在多大程度上促进条件强化。三组大鼠接受巴甫洛夫条件反射，先是视觉听觉复合提示，然后是食物。训练后，提供了一个杠杆，当按下它时，产生了相同的训练复合物（群体复合物），只有听觉线索（群体元素），或新的听觉线索（群体控制）。组化合物中的大鼠以高于组元素或组对照中的大鼠的速率按压杠杆，仅在组化合物中表现出强烈的条件强化作用。有趣的是，群体元素和群体控制之间的反应几乎没有差异。讨论了这种泛化减少对条件强化的影响——特别是当它们与行为神经科学的研究相关时。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。组化合物中的大鼠以高于组元素或组对照中的大鼠的速率按压杠杆，仅在组化合物中表现出强烈的条件强化作用。有趣的是，群体元素和群体控制之间的反应几乎没有差异。讨论了这种泛化减少对条件强化的影响——特别是当它们与行为神经科学的研究相关时。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。组化合物中的大鼠以高于组元素或组对照中的大鼠的速率按压杠杆，仅在组化合物中表现出强烈的条件强化作用。有趣的是，群体元素和群体控制之间的反应几乎没有差异。讨论了这种泛化减少对条件强化的影响——特别是当它们与行为神经科学的研究相关时。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。讨论了这种泛化减少对条件强化的影响——特别是当它们与行为神经科学的研究相关时。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。讨论了这种泛化减少对条件强化的影响——特别是当它们与行为神经科学的研究相关时。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。