The Effect of Temporal Separation and Prior Habituation upon Preconditioning *

Abstract

The effect of temporal separation and prior habituation was tested by measuring response transfer in a shuttle box following different initial treatments. Thirty hooded rats were split into three main groups and six sub-groups. One main group was preconditioned with concurrent light and sound stimuli, another with temporally spaced stimuli, and a control group had no preconditioning. Half of each main group was permitted to explore the apparatus before preconditioning on the supposition that this might reduce emotionality and hence reduce startle or attention responses.

It was found that concurrent stimulation produced significantly greater response transfer than in controls, whereas preconditioning with spaced stimuli did not. Prior habituation produced no significant effect on the amount of response transfer.