Any excuse to use electrodes on monkeys, I guess. (They should have used the electrodes on the guy who put “drawn” in quotes.)
Researchers Find That Rare Rewards Amplify Dopamine Responses During Learning
Phys.org | April 2, 2021Using electrodes, Stauffer and his colleagues recorded dopamine responses while monkeys were viewing the visual cues associated with rewards from the two different reward probability distributions. They also recorded dopamine responses when the monkeys received rewards ‘drawn’ from the virtual reward probability distributions.
Remarkably, the researchers observed that rewards that were administered with a lower frequency (i.e., rare rewards) amplified dopamine responses in the brains of the monkeys. In comparison, rewards of the exact same size but delivered with greater frequency evoked weaker dopamine responses.
Jeez Louis, Pasteur: psychologists knew of such an effect a long time ago: at least they did when I was in school. They had a name for it — “intermittent reinforcement,” I think — which was probably on the exam, but the exam is over and I haven’t been rewarded since.
Also, Dilbert had a great series on employees becoming addicted to positive feedback, which was very funny, and I remember that much better.
Yeah – they knew about this at least in the mid-70s when I was studying by the flicker of the whale oil lamp. I guess the scientists forgot or lost the book. Either that or they just got a good deal on electrodes and figured it was time to light the monkeys up.
C’mon, Monk!
“Light the Monkeys Up” would be a great name for a band. Or an album. Or a movie. Whatever: I’d pay to see it.
The electrode shocks will continue until morale improves.
FrankJ hates monkeys. And unpaid interns. And Biden. And hippies. And me. And this is his site.
Errr, “Unpaid Interns”?
Is that True?
Just asking.
For some friends.