Transfer and Counterconditioning of Conditional Control in the Rabbit Nictitating Membrane Response

Abstract

Two experiments using the rabbit nictitating membrane response investigated whether training in one conditional discrimination (A→X+, B→X-), enabled the feature cues (A and B) to modulate responding to another CS (Y) trained as a target stimulus in a second conditional discrimination (C→Y+, D→Y-). There was near-complete transfer of the feature cue's conditional control, indicating that the feature cue's ability to modulate responding is not based on an association specific to the training target. Experiment 2 also revealed that the role of a stimulus to act as a conditional cue is affected by its ability to act as a simple conditioned excitor or inhibitor. Following initial acquisition of two conditional discriminations, two feature cues were reinforced in a pattern consistent with the initial conditional discrimination (A→+, B→-), whereas the other two feature cues were reinforced in the reverse pattern to that of the original conditional discrimination (C→-, D→+). Subsequent tests revealed that the reversed training of the feature cues interfered with the original conditional discriminations. The results are consistent with theories that the feature cue gains an association with a representation of the emotional attributes of the US, which acts to modulate responding to the target stimulus through a diffuse change in motivational level. However, hierarchical theories of conditional discriminations that assume a lack of CS-specificity may also be able to explain the findings.