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Context‐dependent extinction of an appetitive operant conditioned response in infant rats
Author(s) -
Orellana Barrera Estefanía,
Arias Carlos,
González Felisa,
Abate Paula
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.21499
Subject(s) - extinction (optical mineralogy) , operant conditioning , context (archaeology) , conditioning , psychology , reinforcement , classical conditioning , developmental psychology , affect (linguistics) , conditioned response , communication , social psychology , biology , mathematics , paleontology , statistics
The present study evaluated context‐dependent learning under an operant conditioning procedure in infant rats. Preweanling rats were trained in context A during postnatal days (PDs) 16 and 17 to learn an appetitive operant conditioning task, employing milk chocolate as appetitive reinforcer. On PD18 the operant response was extinguished in context A, or in an alternative context B. The change from context A to B between acquisition and extinction did not affect the number of responses during extinction, but slightly modified the shape of the extinction curve. On PD19, a renewal test conducted in context A clearly showed ABA‐renewal of the extinguished operant response. These results add to the body of evidence indicating that infants are able to acquire and retain contextual information, and support the notion that extinction during this ontogenetic period involves new learning.