Time and context effects after discrimination reversal in human beings (original) (raw)
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Context specificity of both acquisition and extinction of a Pavlovian conditioned response
Learning & Memory, 2016
It is widely held that the extinction of a conditioned response is more context specific than its initial acquisition. One proposed explanation is that context serves to disambiguate the meaning of a stimulus. Using a procedure that equated the learning histories of the contexts, we show that the memory of an appetitive Pavlovian association can be highly context specific despite being unambiguous. This result is inconsistent with predictions of the Rescorla–Wagner model of learning but in line with configural accounts of contextual control of behavior. We propose an explanatory model in which context serves to modulate the gain of associative strength and which expands upon the configural idea of unitary representations of context and conditioned stimuli.
Issues in the extinction of specific stimulus-outcome associations in Pavlovian conditioning
Behavioural Processes, 2012
This paper reviews a variety of studies designed to examine the effects of extinction upon control by specific stimulus-outcome (S-O) associations in Pavlovian conditioning. Studies conducted with rats in a magazine approach conditioning paradigm have shown that control by specific SO associations is normally unaffected by extinction treatments, although other aspects of conditioned responding seem affected in a more enduring way. However, recent work suggests that extinction can undermine control by such associations if it is administered after the conditioned stimulus is weakly encoded. The results from these studies suggest that it may be important to consider multiple response systems in assessing the impact of extinction. Studies conducted with the flavor preference learning paradigm in rats also show that specific SO associations can be undermined by procedures that involve presenting a flavor cue in the absence of its associated nutrient. These findings provide no support for the view that flavor preference learning necessarily entails some unique learning process that differs from more conventional processes. As in other situations, some of these effects likely involve a masking process, but the extent to which masking or true associative weakening occurs in extinction more generally is a topic that is not well understood. Finally, we present some data to suggest that extinction also involves conditional "occasionsetting" control by contextual cues. Special procedures are recommended in assessing such learning when the goal is to distinguish this form of learning from other more conventional mechanisms of extinction.
Extinction makes conditioning time-dependent
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 2013
Two experiments explored whether forgetting of an association depended on previous extinction of a different association in rats. Experiment 1 found that when rats were conditioned and extinguished with flavor X, a subsequently acquired conditioned aversion to flavor Y was reduced by a 19-day retention interval, something that did not occur when X and the US were initially presented unpaired. Experiment 2 found that when rats received training and extinction in one of two tasks (conditioned aversion to sucrose in Experiment 2a, and running for water in a straight alley in Experiment 2b), subsequent learning of the alternative task was partially forgotten over the 19-day retention interval. These results are similar to those previously found when manipulating physical and conceptual contexts in rats and humans, respectively, and suggest that the passage of time may play a role similar to the one played by the change in physical or conceptual contexts on information retrieval.
Once in contact always in contact: Evaluative conditioning is resistant to extinction
Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1988
The present study aimed at obtaining some further support for the hypothesis of a distinction between two basically different kinds of learning in a Pavlovian conditioning preparation: signal-learning and affective-evaluative learning (Baeyens el al., 1988a.b;. In this respect, we conducted an experiment to verify the Martin (1983.1987) hypothesis that, unlike signal-learning, evaluative conditioning should be resistant to extinction. Mere contingent presentation of neutral with (dis)liked stimuli was sufficient to change the affective-evaluative tone of the originally neutral stimuli in a (negative) positive direction (~~0.0001). A subsequent extinction procedure did not have any influence on the acquired evaluative value of the originally neutral stimuli (+O.OOOl). A follow-up study demonstrated that the evaluative discriminations were still present two months after the acquisition and extinction manipulations @<O.OOOl). These findings provide full support for the resistance to extinction hypothesis. At a theoretical level, this is considered to be further evidence for the hypothesis that evaluative conditioning is not mediated by the acquisition of propositional-declarative knowledge about stimulus contingencies. Finally, we suggest an intriguing analogy between the evaluative conditioning phenomenon and the 'laws of sympathetic magic' (Rozin ef nl.. 1986).
Learning and Motivation, 1997
Two experiments were conducted to test whether a renewal effect known to occur after extinction in many conditioning preparations can also be found in the conditioned taste aversion paradigm. Experiment 1 found that a taste aversion extinguished in a context different from the conditioning context was partially renewed when the taste was returned to the conditioning context. Extinction of the aversion proceeded similarly regardless of whether it occurred in the conditioning context or in a second context, suggesting that context-illness or context-taste associations that might have developed during conditioning did not influence performance, and that the flavor was perceived as the same stimulus in the two contexts. Experiment 2 examined the effects of the same context manipulations on flavors that had been explicitly unpaired with illness; no effects on flavor consumption were found. Taken together, the results suggest that the context might play the same modulatory role in taste aversion learning that it does in other conditioning procedures. ᭧ 1997 Academic Press
Three experiments using rats in an appetitive conditioning procedure analyzed the effect of short and long (50 s vs. 1440 s) intertrial intervals (ITI) over the acquisition of conditioned stimulus (CS), context (Ctxt), and unconditioned stimulus (US) associations, as well as the effect on the extinction and renewal of the conditioned response to the CS. Experiment 1 revealed more contextual conditioned responses in groups trained with the short ITIs, however the renewal effect was not observed during test phase with either ITI condition. When subjects were pre-exposed to the contexts before the acquisition phase (Experiment 2) renewal of the conditioned response (CR) was only observed in long ITI group. However, when the acquisition context was extinguished (Experiment 3) the renewal effect observed in the Experiment 2 was weakened. In all three experiments subjects showed a similar number of responses to the tone predicting food, however they showed a clear contextual conditioning effect only for the groups trained with short ITIs. It is noteworthy that the acquisition context showed high levels of the CR in the renewal test only for groups trained with short ITIs (Experiment 2) but these responses were absent if additional contextual extinction was imposed before such test (Experiment 3). In general, all groups showed similar acquisition curves for the CS but only Short groups had an increase in the CR during the pre-CS. Also, context conditioning does not interfere with the conditioning of the CS and context pre-exposure prior to acquisition is essential in order to observe the renewal effect when long ITIs are used.
Contextual control of conditioning is not affected by extinction in a behavioral task with humans
Learning & behavior, 2015
The Attentional Theory of Context Processing (ATCP) states that extinction will arouse attention to contexts resulting in learning becoming contextually controlled. Participants learned to suppress responding to colored sensors in a video-game task where contexts were provided by different gameplay backgrounds. Four experiments assessed the contextual control of simple excitatory learning acquired to a test stimulus (T) after (Exp. 1) or during (Exp. 2-4) extinction of another stimulus (X). Experiment 1 produced no evidence of contextual control of T, though renewal to X was present both at the time T was trained and tested. In Experiment 2 no contextual control of T was evident when X underwent extensive conditioning and extinction. In Experiment 3 no contextual control of T was evident after extensive conditioning and extinction of X, and renewal to X was present. In Experiment 4 contextual control was evident to T, but it neither depended upon nor was enhanced by extinction of X....
Revista Brasileira de Análise do Comportamento, 2019
We conducted a preliminary study to replicate the experiment by Schiller et al. (2010), who found that conditional responses (CR) may be permanently inhibited through post-retrieval extinction, a procedure in which subjects are exposed to a stimulus that was present during conditioning (retrieval cue), such as the presentation of the CS without the US or a single presentation of the US alone, followed by extinction. Eleven adult participants underwent Pavlovian conditioning with three colored squares (CS), two of which (CSa+ and CSb+) were paired with a mild electrical stimulation (US), whereas a third stimulus was never paired with a US (CS-). Twenty-four hours later, the participants were divided into two groups (experimental and control) and underwent extinction, which consisted of presenting all CSs without the US. For the experimental group only, a retrieval cue consisting of a single presentation of the CSa+ and CS- without the US was administered 10 min before extinction. In ...