Increased reinforcer motivation in rats has been repeatedly demonstrated following intermittent-access (IntA) training, where the reinforcer is only available for brief periods during a session, compared to continuous-access (ContA) training where the reinforcer is available throughout the session. The present study investigated whether different associations learned during training on the two procedures contributes to the effect. Two experiments tested the importance of the stimulus-response (S-R) and stimulus-outcome (S-O) associations between the IntA availability cues and the training response and reinforcer, respectively. In Exp. 1, separate groups of rats were trained to lever press for saccharin on the IntA or ContA procedures. Increased motivation for saccharin was observed in the IntA group on a later progressive ratio test where nosepoking was the operant (but not when lever pressing was the operant). The outcome of the nosepoke test suggests that a potential S-R association formed during IntA training was not critical for the effect. In Exp. 2, increased saccharin motivation (on nosepoke tests) after IntA training (with lever pressing) was observed regardless of the presence or absence of IntA availability cues, indicating that the S-O association formed during training is not critical for the effect either. Overall, these results suggest that the elemental associations learned on IntA procedures may not be what drives increased motivation observed after IntA training.

间歇性访问（IntA）训练后，大鼠的强化动机得到了增加，其中强化物仅在训练期间的短暂时间内可用，而连续访问（ContA）训练则在整个训练期间提供强化物。本研究调查了在这两种程序的培训过程中学到的不同关联是否有助于这种效果。两项实验分别测试了 IntA 可用性线索与训练反应和强化物之间刺激-反应 (SR) 和刺激-结果 (SO) 关联的重要性。在Exp。如图 1 所示，训练不同组的大鼠在 IntA 或 ContA 程序中压杆获取糖精。在后来的渐进比率测试中，观察到 IntA 组对糖精的兴趣有所增加，其中以鼻子戳为操作（但当操作为按下杠杆时则不然）。鼻刺测试的结果表明，IntA 训练期间形成的潜在 SR 关联对于效果并不重要。在Exp。如图 2 所示，无论是否存在 IntA 可用性线索，在 IntA 训练（按下杠杆）后观察到糖精动机（在鼻子测试中）增加，这表明训练期间形成的 SO 关联对于效果也不是至关重要的。总体而言，这些结果表明，在 IntA 程序中学到的基本关联可能并不是 IntA 培训后观察到的动机增加的驱动力。