The effect of periarcuate lesions in the monkey on the performance of symmetrically and asymmetrically reinforced visual and auditory go, no-go tasks.
Monkeys with lesions restricted to the periarcuate region of the frontal cortex were impaired on go, no-go tasks in which, depending on the stimulus present on any given trial, they were rewarded either for pushing a manipulandum or for withholding this response for a given period of time. By contrast, these animals were able to learn at a normal rate go, no-go tasks in which they were rewarded if they responded in the presence of a "positive" stimulus, but not in the presence of a "negative" stimulus. In the latter situation, responding in the presence of the "negative" stimulus was extinguished through non-reward, whereas the tasks on which impairments were demonstrated required solution on the basis of a conditional rule: If stimulus A, respond, and if stimulus B, withhold responding, to receive reward. Because the 2 experimental situations were identical in every respect except for the one critical difference in the testing procedure, the present set of experiments provides a powerful demonstration of the involvement of the periarcuate cortex in conditional learning with exteroceptive stimuli.
D000818:Animals; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D011584:Psychology / Q000295:instrumentation; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*