Animals optimize their behavior to maximize rewards by utilizing cues from the environment. In discrimination learning, cues signal when rewards can and cannot be earned by making a particular response. In our experiment, we trained male mice to press a lever to receive a reward on a random interval schedule. We then introduced a prolonged tone (20, 40, or 80 sec), during which no rewards could be earned. We sought to test our hypothesis that the duration of the tone and frequency of reward during the inter-tone-intervals affect the informativeness of cues and led to differences in discriminative behavior. Learning was expressed as an increase in lever pressing during the intertrial interval (ITI) and, when the informativeness of the cue was high, animals also reduced their lever pressing during the tone. Additionally, we found that the depth of discriminative learning was linearly related to the informativeness of the cues. Our results show that the time-scale invariant information-theoretic definition of contingency applied to excitatory conditioning can also be applied to inhibitory conditioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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歧视学习中的时标不变信息理论偶然性。

动物通过利用来自环境的线索来优化其行为，以最大化回报。在歧视性学习中，提示会发出信号，表明何时可以通过做出特定的回应而不能获得奖励。在我们的实验中，我们训练了雄性老鼠按下杠杆以随机间隔的时间表获得奖励。然后，我们引入了较长的音调（20、40或80秒），在此期间无法获得任何奖励。我们试图检验我们的假设，即在音调间隔内音调的持续时间和奖励频率会影响提示的信息性并导致判别行为的差异。学习表现为在心律间隔（ITI）期间杆压的增加，并且当提示的信息量很高时，动物也降低了音调期间的杆压。另外，我们发现判别性学习的深度与线索的信息量线性相关。我们的研究结果表明，时间尺度不变信息理论对应急性的条件定义适用于兴奋性调节，也可以应用于抑制性调节。（PsycINFO数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。