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Related Concept Videos

Primary and Secondary Reinforcers01:23

Primary and Secondary Reinforcers

In psychology, reinforcement is a key concept in behavior modification. B.F. Skinner demonstrated this with his experiments involving rats in what is known as a Skinner box. The rats learned to press a lever to receive food, a primary reinforcer that fulfilled their innate need for nourishment.
Effective reinforcers for humans vary depending on the individual and the context. Primary reinforcers, such as food, water, sleep, shelter, and pleasure, have inherent value and satisfy basic biological...
Timing and Consequences on Behavior01:08

Timing and Consequences on Behavior

In operant conditioning, the timing of reinforcement is crucial. For animals like rats and cats, immediate reinforcement (within a few seconds) is much more effective than delayed reinforcement. For example, a food reward for a rat needs to follow within 30 seconds of pressing a bar to be effective. 
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Real-World Application of Classical Conditioning01:15

Real-World Application of Classical Conditioning

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Operant Conditioning01:21

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Instinctive Drift01:05

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 16, 2026

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats
06:57

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Published on: February 4, 2016

Contextual novelty changes reward representations in the striatum.

Marc Guitart-Masip1, Nico Bunzeck, Klaas E Stephan

  • 1Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom. m.guitart@ucl.ac.uk

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
|February 5, 2010
PubMed
Summary

Perceptual novelty enhances reward processing in the striatum, particularly when reward salience is low. This finding supports a functional loop model involving the hippocampus, ventral striatum, and midbrain in novelty attribution.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Reward representation in the ventral striatum is influenced by perceptual novelty.
  • A functional loop involving the hippocampus, ventral striatum, and midbrain is implicated in salience attribution for novel stimuli (Lisman and Grace, 2005).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the mechanism by which perceptual novelty enhances reward representation in the ventral striatum.
  • To test the hypothesis that reward responses are enhanced by unrelated novelty, as predicted by the Lisman and Grace (2005) model.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity.
  • Participants were presented with reward-predictive cues and outcomes preceded by unrelated novel or familiar pictures.

Main Results:

  • Striatal responses to reward-predictive cues and outcomes were significantly higher when preceded by an unrelated novel picture.
  • This enhancement effect was most pronounced when reward occurrence and associated salience were low.

Conclusions:

  • Contextual novelty potentiates neural responses related to reward representation in the striatum.
  • Findings support the functional loop model's predictions regarding the interplay of novelty and reward processing.