Search Modes and Repertoires in Traditional Pavlovian Paradigms

本研究的目的是发展一种系统的方法来研究动机行为，这种方法将动物行为学对自然发生的行为的强调与心理学家对学习如何改变反应的形式和概率的精确分析相结合。 行为系统方法试图解决行为学家和心理学家之间的分歧，它假设顺序搜索状态的同一基质， 感知运动组织是动物行为的基础，无论它们是自由放养还是受约束。 本研究具体测试了巴甫洛夫条件反射中的搜索模式序列如何被揭示并有助于传统的实验室现象，包括通过时间持续和简单的条件刺激，试验间时钟，串行条件刺激，高阶条件反射和向后条件反射来控制兴奋状态。这项研究的结果应该提供一个具体的，但概括的框架，整合自然科学家的实地观察与广泛的实验室研究动物学习。 通过将觅食行为嵌入行为系统的感觉、运动和动机组织中，本方法提供了一个特定的模型，可以预测实验室以及现场和应用环境中的行为。 行为系统框架应该为其他物种生成类似模型提供基础，并更清楚地定义神经生理学和药物相关操作的影响。

Animal Behavior ProgramNontechnical AbstractProposal #: 9817175PI: Timberlake, WilliamTitle: Search Modes and Repertoires in Traditional Pavlovian ParadigmsThe goal of this research is to develop a systems approach to motivated behavior that combines an ethological emphasis on naturally occurring behavior with a psychologist's precise analysis of how learning changes the form and probability of responses. The behavior systems approach attempts to resolve the split between ethologists and psychologists by assuming that the same substrate of sequential search states and perceptual-motor organization underlies the behavior of animals whether they are free-ranging or constrained. This research specifically tests how a sequence of search modes is revealed by and contributes to traditional laboratory phenomena in Pavlovian Conditioning, including the control of excitatory states by temporal duration and simple conditioned-stimuli, intertrial clocks, serial conditioned stimuli, higher-order conditioning, and backward conditioning. The results of this research should provide a specific but generalizable framework for integrating the field observations of natural scientists with the extensive laboratory research on learning in animals. By embedding foraging behavior in the sensory, motor, and motivational organization of a behavior system, the present approach provides a specific model that can predict behavior in the laboratory as well as in field and applied settings. A behavior systems framework should provide a basis for generating similar models for other species, and for defining more clearly the effects of neurophysiological and drug-related manipulations.