Delayed reward learning: Disproof of the traditional theory

Learning and MotivationPublished 1 August 1973

Bow Tong Lett

DOI10.1016/0023-9690(73)90013-1

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Citations45

SJR quartileQ2

SJR score0.46

SNIP0.95

TL;DR

Abstract

Without the aid of secondary rewards to bridge the temporal gap, each of 15 rats learned to select the rewarded side of a T-maze although the reward was delayed until 1 min after the response was emitted. Similar results were obtained from another group of eight rats for which the length of the delay was 5 min. In a final experiment using the same basic procedure, five groups of rats were trained for 25 days with delays of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, or 8.0 min. The percentage of correct responses did not significantly differ among groups. According to prevailing psychological theory, these results are impossible.

Keywords

Neuroscience

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