Blocking of the Rabbit's Classically Conditioned Nictitating Membrane Response: Effects of Modifications of Contextual Associative Strength

Giftakis, Jonathon E.; Tait, Robert W.

doi:10.1006/lmot.1997.0989

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Presentation of the CS outside of the training context leads to robust CERs in this paradigm (McIntosh and Gonazalez-Lima 1993-1995. Furthermore, changes in context following phase II training does not attenuate the blocking effect (Giftakis et al 1998). During the FDG uptake period, the brain effects were evoked by the tone CS rather than other learned cues.…”

Section: Behavioral Protocolmentioning

confidence: 95%

Mapping Pavlovian Conditioning Effects on the Brain: Blocking, Contiguity, and Excitatory Effects

Jones

González-Lima

2001

Journal of Neurophysiology

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Pavlovian conditioning effects on the brain were investigated by mapping rat brain activity with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) autoradiography. The goal was to map the effects of the same tone after blocking or eliciting a conditioned emotional response (CER). In the tone-blocked group, previous learning about a light blocked a CER to the tone. In the tone-excitor group, the same pairings of tone with shock US resulted in a CER to the tone in the absence of previous learning about the light. A third group showed no CER after pseudorandom presentations of these stimuli. Brain systems involved in the various associative effects of Pavlovian conditioning were identified, and their functional significance was interpreted in light of previous FDG studies. Three conditioning effects were mapped: 1) blocking effects: FDG uptake was lower in medial prefrontal cortex and higher in spinal trigeminal and cuneate nuclei in the tone-blocked group relative to the tone-excitor group. 2) Contiguity effects: relative to pseudorandom controls, similar FDG uptake increases in the tone-blocked and -excitor groups were found in auditory regions (inferior colliculus and cortex), hippocampus (CA1), cerebellum, caudate putamen, and solitary nucleus. Contiguity effects may be due to tone-shock pairings common to the tone-blocked and -excitor groups rather than their different CER. And 3) excitatory effects: FDG uptake increases limited to the tone-excitor group occurred in a circuit linked to the CER, including insular and anterior cingulate cortex, vertical diagonal band nucleus, anterior hypothalamus, and caudoventral caudate putamen. This study provided the first large-scale map of brain regions underlying the Kamin blocking effect on conditioning. In particular, the results suggest that suppression of prefrontal activity and activation of unconditioned stimulus pathways are important neural substrates of the Kamin blocking effect.

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Section: Behavioral Protocolmentioning

confidence: 95%

Mapping Pavlovian Conditioning Effects on the Brain: Blocking, Contiguity, and Excitatory Effects

Jones

González-Lima

2001

Journal of Neurophysiology

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“…The typical finding is that prior conditioning of CS A blocks the development of conditioned responding to CS B, although other interpretations of blocking have been proposed (e.g., Beckers, Miller, Houwer, & Urushihara, 2006; Blaisdell, Gunther, & Miller, 1999). Blocking has been demonstrated in many paradigms (e.g., conditioned suppression, eyelid conditioning, causality judgment and categorization tasks, and Morris water maze) with humans and animals (e.g., Arcediano, Matute, & Miller, 1997; Diez-Chamizo, Sterio, & Mackintosh, 1985; Giftakis & Tait, 1998; Kamin, 1968; Roberts & Pearce, 1999).…”

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confidence: 99%

Blocking in rat serial pattern learning.

Kundey

Fountain

2010

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

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Both associative and rule-learning theories have been proposed to account for rat serial pattern learning, but individually they are unable to account for a variety of recent behavioral and psychobiological phenomena. The present study examined the role of rule learning versus discriminative learning in rat pattern learning using a classic associative phenomenon: blocking. Rats learned to press levers in an 8-lever circular array according to a rule-based serial pattern, 123-234-345-456-567-678-781-812, where digits indicate the correct lever in the array for each trial. Each pattern presentation contained a chunk with a final element violation, such as 454 instead of 456. Rats learned in a first phase that a noise signaled the violation chunk; then, a concurrent spatial cue was added in a second phase. A test with spatial cues alone showed that blocking occurred. The results suggest that associative learning mediated cuing of violation elements. Taken together with other behavioral and psychobiological evidence already reported in the literature implicating rule learning when rats learn this pattern in this paradigm, these results implicate multiple concurrent learning processes in rat serial pattern learning.

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“…Rabbits do show some sensitivity to contextual manipulations (see Giftakis & Tait, 1998;Hinson, 1982;Saladin & Tait, 1986), but in the case of renewal, a search of the literature failed to reveal any manipulations of external background cues after extinction. Both of these procedures entail changing the context between extinction and the final testing stage for the original CS, either by changing the external background cues or by reintroducing the US and its presumed internal consequences.…”

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confidence: 99%

Recovery of the rabbit’s conditioned nictitating membrane response without direct reinforcement after extinction

Weidemann

Kehoe

2004

Learning & Behavior

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Three experiments demonstrated that, following the extinction of an established conditioned stimulus (CSA--e.g., tone), the pairing of a novel, cross-modal stimulus (CSB--e.g., light) with the unconditioned stimulus (US) results in strong recovery of responding to the extinguished CSA. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the recovery of responding to CSA is not the result of US reinstatement but is attributable to pairings of CSB with the US. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the recovery of responding is specific to CSA and is not the result of cross-modal generalization. Experiment 3 revealed that a large number of CSB-US pairings in Stage 1 significantly reduced the amount of recovery to CSA during subsequent CSB-US trials. Experiment 3 also provided unexpected evidence of cross-modal secondary extinction. The extinction and subsequent recovery of responding seen in the present experiments is discussed with respect to possible contributions from contextual associations, CS processing, US processing, conditioned response expression, and layered excitatory associations.

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Blocking of the Rabbit's Classically Conditioned Nictitating Membrane Response: Effects of Modifications of Contextual Associative Strength

Cited by 11 publications

References 40 publications

Mapping Pavlovian Conditioning Effects on the Brain: Blocking, Contiguity, and Excitatory Effects

Mapping Pavlovian Conditioning Effects on the Brain: Blocking, Contiguity, and Excitatory Effects

Blocking in rat serial pattern learning.

Recovery of the rabbit’s conditioned nictitating membrane response without direct reinforcement after extinction

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