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T. James Matthews
Psychology
Motivation, Learning and Hormones
Female rodents with high estrogen levels are well known to
approach males, presumably for reproductive purposes. We have
developed a preparation in which females learn to make an operant
response for copulatory access to a responsive male. By varying the
situation, however, we have discovered that our presumption of the
centrality of reproduction in this behavior may be suspect. We have
observed, for instance, that females without estrogen are equally
likely to work to gain access to a male, indeed a male whom she
immediately and unambiguously rejects. Further, females with and
without estrogen will work as urgently for access to other females as
for males. Finally, males will, of course, work for access to
receptive females, but, again surprisingly, they will work slightly
faster for access to unreceptive females. Clearly, the motivation for
this learned response is more social than sexual.
Our current work involves an expanded behavioral analysis of social
motivation as well as a search for possible hormonal control
mechanisms. We are using mice as subjects to take advantage of the
many "knock-out" preparations that provide very precise manipulations
of hormones and hormone receptors.
E-mail: jim.matthews@nyu.edu
Selected Publications
- Matthews, T.J. and Lerer, B.E. (1987) Behavior patterns in pigeons during autoshaping with an incremental conditioned stimulus. Animal Learning and Behavior 1: 69-75
- Bordi, F. and Matthews, T.J. (1990) The effects of psychoactive drugs on schedule-controlled behavior in the pigeon. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 53: 87-102
- Allan, R.W. and Matthews, T.J. (1990) Comparative effects of food and water deprivation on movement patterns in the pigeon (Colomba Livia). Behavioural Processes 20: 41-48
- Matthews, T.J., Bordi, F., and Depollo, D. (1990) Schedule-induced kinesic and taxic behavioral stereotypy in the pigeon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 16: 335-344
- Allan, R.W. and Matthews, T.J. (1992) "Turning back the clock" on serial-stimulus sign tracking. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 56: 427-443
- Allan, R.W. and Matthews, T.J. (1992) Selective sensitivity of schedule-induced activity to an operant suppression contingency. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 58: 471-483
- Papadouka, V. and Matthews, T.J. (1995) Motivational mechanisms and schedule-induced behavioral stereotypy. Animal Learning and Behavior 22: 354-363
- Matthews, T.J., Grigore, M., Tang, L., Doat, M., Ming-Kow, L., and Pfaff, D.W. (1997) Sexual reinforcement in the female rat. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 68: 399-410
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