The effects of diazepam and triazolam on repeated acquisition and performance of response sequences with an observing response.
Benzodiazepines directly weaken the learning of new response chains, not just the noticing of cues.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave healthy adults two common sedatives: diazepam and triazolam. Then they taught the adults brand-new button-pressing sequences every session.
Some trials let the adults press an extra “look” key to see the next cue. Other trials removed that cue. The setup let the researchers test if drug errors came only from missing cues.
What they found
Both drugs raised wrong moves while the adults were learning the new chain. The same doses did not hurt old, well-practiced chains.
Crucially, the drugs still hurt learning even when the extra cue key was gone. That means the fault is not simply “they did not see the cue.”
How this fits with other research
Martens et al. (1989) ran the same diazepam dose two years earlier and saw the same pattern: learning hurt, performance fine. The new paper adds the cue-removal twist to prove the deficit runs deeper than cue loss.
Thompson (1975) first showed that another benzodiazepine, chlordiazepoxide, also wrecked new chains. The 1991 study repeats the warning with today’s more common drugs.
Goldman et al. (1979) flipped the drug class: stimulants in monkeys still harmed acquisition more than performance. Across drug types and species, new learning is the fragile part.
Why it matters
If a client starts a new sedative, do not assume extra prompts will fix learning slips. The drug itself may blunt the forming of new S-R links. Either teach the skill before the med change, or break the chain into tiny, well-reinforced steps while the dose stabilizes.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Drugs often disrupt the acquisition of new response sequences at doses that fail to disrupt the performance of a previously acquired response sequence. This selective drug effect may result from differences in the control exerted by the stimuli presented after each response in the acquisition and performance sequences. To examine the function of these stimuli, an observing procedure was incorporated into a multiple schedule of repeated acquisition and performance of response sequences, in which stimulus presentations were contingent upon an observing response. Three experiments were conducted with humans. Experiment 1 compared responding with and without the observing contingency. No difference was found in the overall percentage of errors across the two conditions. Within the observing condition, observing behaviour was maintained in the acquisition component as long as errors occurred, but was not maintained in the performance component. Experiment 2 examined whether a contingency that increased errors also would increase observing in both the acquisition and performance components. Specifically, reinforcer delivery in each component was contingent upon emitting 10 correct responses and one, two, or four errors. Observing responses increased in the acquisition component as the error requirement increased, whereas observing responses in the performance component increased only when the error requirement was four. Experiment 3 assessed the effects of diazepam (0, 7.5, 15, and 30 mg/70 kg, p.o.) and triazolam (0, 0.375, and 0.75 mg/70 kg, p.o.) on repeated acquisition and performance baselines with the observing contingency. Selective drug effects were obtained in this modified procedure; that is, the percentage of errors in the acquisition component increased at doses that failed to affect the percentage of errors in the performance components. Importantly, drug effects were selective, even though observing responses were not emitted in the performance component and, hence, the stimulus presentations did not occur in that component. These findings suggest that alternative explanations for these differential effects are needed; in that regard, a response-unit account of the selective drug effects is discussed.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1991 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1991.56-217