Direct Goal-box Placement Effect on Acquired Performance of Serial Pattern in Rats

Abstract

This experiment tested the effect of direct goal-box placement (DP) on serial pattern learning performance which had been acquired by ordinary running training. In Phase 1, ordinary training was employed in which rats were required to run from the start-box to the goal-box, one basic group of rats received monotonic (M) pattern (14-7-3-1-0 food pellets) and the other received nonmonotonic (NM) pattern (14-1-3-7-0). Then, in Phase 2, the DP procedure was employed, each group of Phase 1 was divided into three subgroups, M(monotonic), R(random), or NR(nonreward), respectively. Each pattern of this phase was 2, 3, or 4 items in length. Finally, in Phase 3, rats were tested for their performance in runway. The procedure of this phase was identical with Phase 1 except that all rats received 14-7-3-1-0 pattern. The results of Phase 3 showed that DP was effective on the rats which received NM pattern in Phase 1, but it was of little effect on the rats which received M pattern in Phase 1. These findings indicate that DP, in the experimental paradigm of this study, is effective only when the learning tasks of Phase 1 and Phase 2 are not identical.