Role of context in performance on a random schedule in autoshaping.

Robbins, Steven J.

doi:10.1037/0097-7403.14.4.413

Cited by 12 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Thus, a significant degree of stimulus specificity, but not total specificity, was observed. This raises the question of whether the observed degree of nonspecificity arose from (a) some stimulus-nonspecific modulatory role of excitatory cues in general (as suggested by Robbins, 1988); (b) stimulus generalization between X and Y, both of which were lights (i.e., houselight and flashing bright light); or (c) stimulus generalization between A and B, both of which were auditory cues (i.e., white noise and tone). The present data are inconclusive regarding this question.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In each of those demonstrations of comparator stimulus specificity, the consequences of extinguishing associations to an excitatory nontarget CS that was present during training of the target CS were contrasted with the consequences of extinguishing associations to an excitatory nontarget CS that was not present during training of the target CS. However, Robbins (1988) correctly noted that the latter nontarget CSs were trained in situations that were not only outside of the target CS training sessions but also devoid of any other CS for which the latter nontarget CS might have acted as a comparator stimulus.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Responding to a conditioned stimulus depends on the current associative status of other cues present during training of that specific stimulus.

Miller¹,

Barnet²,

Grahame³

1992

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

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The comparator hypothesis is a response rule stating that responding to a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS) reflects the associative strength of the CS relative to that of other cues (comparator stimuli) that were present during CS training. Thus, modulation of the associative strength of a CS's comparator stimulus should alter responding to that CS. These studies examined the stimulus specificity of this effect using within-subjects designs. Rats were trained on 2 CSs, each with a unique comparator stimulus, to determine the degree to which posttraining extinction of the comparator stimulus for one CS influences responding to the other CS. Using negative contingency (Experiments 1 and 2), overshadowing (Experiment 3), and local context (Experiment 4) preparations, stimulus specificity was observed. In each case, posttraining extinction of the comparator stimulus for one CS had greater impact on responding to that CS than on responding to the alternate CS.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Responding to a conditioned stimulus depends on the current associative status of other cues present during training of that specific stimulus.

Miller¹,

Barnet²,

Grahame³

1992

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

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“…However, the predicted effects of posttraining extinction of comparator stimuli are not always observed. For example, deflation after truly random exposure (i.e., leamed irrelevance treatment) appears to be ineffective (Miller, 1987;Robbins, 1988).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inflation of comparator stimuli following CS training

Miller

Hallam

Grahame

1990

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Water-deprived rats served in seven conditioned lick suppression experiments designed to assess the effects on responding to a target CS of aseries of unsignaled USs given in the training context following completion of CS training. Such treatment has been hypothesized to increase (inflate) the associative strength ofthe background cues from training (putatively, the CS's comparator stimuli), thereby reducing responding to excitatory CSs and increasing the inhibitory potential of inhibitory CSs. Although posttraining extinction (deflation) ofthe CS's comparator stimuli usually decreases inhibitory potential and increases excitatory potential of the target CS, posttraining inflation of the comparator stimuli had no effect on either excitatory responding to the target CS or summation test performance indicative of conditioned inhibition. This outcome was consistently obtained across a number of training, inflation, and test conditions selected to maximize sensitivity to any possible effects of comparator inflation. Implications of these null results for the comparator hypothesis of conditioned response generation are discussed. expected when the US representation based on the CS is large, relative to that based on the comparator stimuli; inhibitory behavior is expected when the US representation based on the CS is small, relative to that based on the comparator stimuli. The comparator stimuli are some combination of the background cues that were present during training and any punctate cues that occurred proximal to the target CS during training. The exact weights of different comparator cues presumably are determined by the relative saliencies of the candidate cues.The comparator hypothesis makes many behavioral predictions that are identical to those generated by most contemporary theories of acquisition (e.g., Rescorla & Wagner, 1972). For instance, inflation of what we have termed comparator stimuli is well known to attenuate excitatory responding to a CS when the inflation occurs before or during CS training (US-preexposure effect and The comparator hypothesis (Miller & MatzeI, 1988; is a response rule that posits that conditioned responding is not only a positive function of the associative strength of the target conditioned stimulus (CS) at the time of testing, but is also a negative function of the associative strength at the time of testing of other stimuli (comparator stimuli) that were present during training (even when CS testing occurs outside the training context). The associative structure underlying the comparator hypothesis is illustrated in Figure 1. Presentation ofthe CS at the time oftesting is presumed to activate both a representation of the unconditioned stimulus (US) that is dependent on the CS-US linkage (Association 1) and a representation of the comparator stimuli that is dependent on the CS-comparator stimuli linkage (Association 2, which is necessary only when testing occurs in the absence of comparator stimuli). The active representation ofthe comparator stimuli, in turn, activates a ...

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“…One criticism ofthe comparator hypothesis (Robbins, 1988) has centered on whether the effects of posttraining context extinction are specific to CSs trained in that context. In other words, do comparator effects rely on a specific CS-training-context association and a specific training-context-US association, or do they result from some general, nonassociative process?…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latent inhibition as a performance deficit resulting from CS—context associations

Grahame

Barnet

Gunther

et al. 1994

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Treatments that attenuate latent inhibition (U) were examined using conditioned suppression in rats. In Experiment 1, retarded conditioned responding was produced by nonreinforced exposure to the CS prior to the CS-US pairings used to assess retardation (Le., conventional U). In Experiment la, retarded conditioned responding was induced by preexposure to pairings of the CS and a weak US prior to retardation-test pairings of the CS with a strong US (Le., Hall-Pearce [1979] U). Both types of U were attenuated by extensive exposure to the training context (Le., context extinction) following the CS-US pairings of the retardation test. Experiment 2 examined the specificity of the attenuated U effect observed in Experiment 1. After preexposure to two different CSs in two different contexts, each CS was paired with a US in its respective preexposure context. One of the two contexts was then extinguished. This attenuated U to a greater degree for the CS that had been trained in the extinguished context. Experiment 3 differentiated the roles in 11 of CS-context associations and context-US associations. Following preexposure to the CS in the training context, U was reduced by further exposure to the CS outside the training context. This observation was interpreted as implicating the CS-context association as a factor in U. Thus, the results of these experiments suggest that U is a performance deficit mediated by unusually strong CS-context associations. Implications for Wagner's (1981) SOP model andMatzel's (1988) comparator hypothesis are discussed.Latent inhibition (Ll), also known as the CS-preexposure effect, is a deficit in Pavlovian responding to a reinforced conditioned stimulus (CS) observed when subjects are exposed to nonreinforced presentations of that CS prior to reinforced training (e.g., Lubow, 1973). Numerous theoretical explanations ofLl have been proposed, almost all of which have presumed that Ll results from a failure by subjects to acquire the CS-unconditionedstimulus (US) association (see, e.g., Lubow, Schnur, 8? Rifkin, 1976;Mackintosh, 1975;Pearce & Hall, 1980;Wagner, 1981). Typically, these theories propose that the nonreinforced pretraining exposure to the target CS decreases attentional or memorial processing of the CS, which impairs the subject's ability to associate the CS with a US when these elements are later paired.However, theories explaining Ll as solely the result of impaired acquisition have been challenged by recent findings which indicate that responding to the CS can be increased by various treatments administered after the retardation-test CS-US pairings. These include a "reminder treatment," which consists of the US administered alone outside the training context (Kasprow, Catterson, Schachtman, & Miller, 1984), and testing that is extensively delayed after the CS-US pairings (Kraemer, Randall, & Carbary, 1991). These observations suggest that CS preexposure produces a reversible performance failure, whereby subjects are slow to respond in accord with the novel contingency encount...

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Role of context in performance on a random schedule in autoshaping.

Cited by 12 publications

References 24 publications

Responding to a conditioned stimulus depends on the current associative status of other cues present during training of that specific stimulus.

Responding to a conditioned stimulus depends on the current associative status of other cues present during training of that specific stimulus.

Inflation of comparator stimuli following CS training

Latent inhibition as a performance deficit resulting from CS—context associations

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