Investigating Factors Underlying the Ability of Reward-Paired Cues to Function as Conditioned Reinforcers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Environmental stimuli paired with drugs-of-abuse can motivate drug use and increase the risk of relapse in abstinent individuals. These reward-paired stimuli can control behavior due in part to their ability to function as conditioned reinforcers (CRfs). In this thesis, I investigated factors underlying the ability of reward-paired stimuli to function as CRfs using the acquisition-of-a-new-response task. In Chapter 2, I examined the effects of reducing the reward value of saccharin on responding for a saccharin-paired CRf. Results showed that responding was not altered by saccharin devaluation. This raised the question of how drug-associated stimuli motivate drug use if they do so in a manner that is divorced from the value of the drug. One limitation of this chapter is that a non-drug reinforcer was used. Thus, in Chapter 3, I examined the effects of reducing the reward value of the drug reinforcer alcohol on responding for an alcohol-paired CRf. These studies found that responding was not altered by alcohol devaluation. Like drug-paired stimuli, stress increases vulnerability to drug use and relapse. In Chapter 4, I explored the effects of the pharmacological stressors, yohimbine and U50,488, on responding for an alcohol- or a sucrose-paired CRf. Yohimbine, but not U50,488, enhanced responding irrespective of the nature of the reward used. Some independent evidence also showed that yohimbine enhanced responding for sensory stimuli (e.g. light and tone) that had not been paired with reward. In Chapter 5, I revisted the question of whether the pairing between the stimulus and reward is important for the stimulus to function as CRf. This was done by examining the effects of manipulating the stimulus-reward association on responding. These studies found that the stimulus-reward association is important. However, the stimulus appeared to have intrinsic properties that facilitated responding. Taken together, these findings suggest that reward-paired stimuli acting as CRfs guide behavior in a manner that is independent of the value of the reward. They also substantiate a role for the intrinsic reinforcing properties of these stimuli in facilitating responding for apparent conditioned reinforcement.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".