抄録
Animals are able to control their behavior in time so that it corresponds to the temporal relations that exist in the environment. However, what happens if temporal signals in the environment are inconsistent with one another? We have found that, when two cues that each signal a different delay to reinforcement are presented simultaneously, rats will often behave as if they are timing an average of their respective durations. We have interpreted this phenomenon as resulting from an integration process in which different temporal memories are combined into a weighted average, which is then timed in an otherwise normal manner. Here, we review the factors that moderate temporal memory averaging, and discuss implications that this averaging behavior has for theories of interval timing, as well as conflict in other domains.
