抄録
After given 10 days of saline injections, rats in Group I were run 15 trials per day on a shuttle avoidance task to a 13/15 criterion plus 10 additional training days all under 20mg/kg of chlordiazepoxide (D). From the following day, they were injected saline (N), being trained to the same criterion, after which they were trained only a day under D. Group II rats were similarly treated except they were not given 10 additional training days and Group III rats were treated like Group II except they were given D instead of N prior to training.
All three groups behaved identically during the original training days under D and showed response decrements with the drug state change from D to N but the decrements were least marked in Group I. When the drug state was shifted back to the original drug state, Group I performed better than on the preceding criterion day under N; this finding was not observed in the other two groups. The obtained overtraining effects can not be ascribed simply to overmedication since Group III which was overmedicated but not overtrained failed to show the same effects. In explaining the results, the drug state was assumed as contextual cues which facilitate or inhibit the retrieval of the learned response.