Temporal and Associative Aspects of Pavlovian Learning

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目的总体目标是 理解时间如何影响巴甫洛夫学习， 人类和动物学会将信号与 生物学上的重大事件。条件反射的研究在一定程度上 因为它深深地参与了许多心理疾病的发展（和治疗）， 健康问题，包括（但不限于）药物依赖和焦虑 紊乱许多拟议的实验，这将是进行与 实验室的老鼠，将区分两种不同的想法， 巴甫洛夫学习工程：一个观点，强调学习的重要性 “试验”（信号发生的场合，无论是否 另一种观点认为，忽视审判，并强调 生物体对重要事件呈现之间的时间的感知。 这些想法和其他想法将在一些实验中进行对比。许多 实验将研究采集中的试验间隔的影响， 而另一些人将研究学习过程中试验间隔的影响， 治疗（消光和反调节），旨在取代旧的 学习新的学习。所有这些都将揭示“优化”的条件 通过使其坚固耐用来学习。其他实验将比较 随着时间的推移和环境的变化，其他人将 研究涉及区分不同的心理过程， 时间间隔这些结果将增加我们对 时间和记忆对条件反射的影响，并将有助于揭示 时间和联想学习之间的相互关系。许多结果 也将增加我们对治疗后复发原因的理解， 建议一些方法来帮助预防或减少复发。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The general goal of this project is to understand how time influences Pavlovian learning, the fundamental learning process in which humans and animals learn to associate signals with biologically significant events. The study of conditioning is important in part because it is deeply involved in the development (and treatment) of many mental health problems, including (but not limited to) drug dependence and anxiety disorders. Many of the proposed experiments, which will be conducted with laboratory rats, will distinguish between two different ideas about how Pavlovian learning works: A view that emphasizes the importance of learning "trials" (occasions on which the signal occurs either with or without the significant event) and another view that ignores trials and emphasizes the organism's perception of time between presentations of the significant event. These ideas and others will be contrasted in number of experiments. Many experiments will investigate the effects of trial spacing in acquisition, whereas others will investigate the effects of trial spacing during learning treatments (extinction and counter conditioning) designed to replace old learning with new learning. All will uncover conditions that "optimize" learning by making it strong and durable. Other experiments will compare the effects of the passage of time and contextual change, and others will investigate the psychological processes involved in discriminating different temporal intervals. The results will increase our understanding of the influence of time and memory on conditioning, and will help reveal the interrelationships between timing and associative learning. Many of the results will also increase our understanding of the causes of relapse after therapy and suggest ways to help prevent or minimize that relapse.