Three experiments with rat subjects examined the effects of a context switch after conditioning treatments in which the conditioned stimulus (CS) was either paired with food on every presentation (continuous reinforcement) or on some of its presentations (partial reinforcement). In each experiment, a target CS was given one of these treatments in Context A, and another CS was given a treatment during sessions that were intermixed in Context B. Final tests of the target CS in Context A and Context B often revealed no loss of responding with the switch to B. However, a loss was observed when partial reinforcement had been associated with Context A and continuous reinforcement had been associated with Context B. Those conditions caused equal decrements in responding to partially reinforced and continuously reinforced targets. The results suggest that under the present conditions partial reinforcement can generate a contextual stimulus that becomes associated with the physical context and controls responding to the CS.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AmselA. (1958). The role of frustrative nonreward in noncontinuous reward situations.Psychological Bulletin55, 102–119.
2.
AmselA. (1992). Frustration theoryCambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
3.
BalazM. A.CapraS.HartlP.MillerR. R. (1981). Conteitual potentiation of acquired behavior after devaluing direct context-US associations.Learning and Motivation12, 383–397.
4.
BoutonM. E.KingD. A. (1983). Contextual control of the extinction of conditioned fear: Tests for the associative value of the context.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes9, 248–265.
5.
BoutonM. E.NelsonJ. B. (1994). Context-specificity of target versus feature inhibition in a feature-negative discrimination.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes20, 51–65.
6.
BoutonM. E.PeckC. A. (1989). Context effects on conditioning, extinction, and reinstatement in an appetitive conditioning preparation.Animal Learning & Behavior17, 188–198.
7.
BoutonM. E.RickerS. T. (1994). Renewal of extinguished responding in a second context.Animal Learning & Behavior22, 317–324.
8.
BoutonM. E.RickerS. T.FrohardtR. J. (2000). Attenuation and augmentation of conditioned fear following a change of context.Manuscript submitted for publication.
9.
BoutonM. E.SwartzentruberD. (1986). Analysis of the associative and occasion-setting properties of contexts participating in a Pavlovian discrimination.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes12, 333–350.
10.
BrooksD. C.BoutonM. E. (1994). A retrieval cue for extinction attenuates response recovery (renewal) caused by a return to the condiuoning context.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes20, 366–379.
11.
CapaldiE. J. (1967). A sequential hypothesis of instrumental learning.The psychology of learning and motivation.SpenceK. W.penceJ. T. SNew York: Academic PressVol. 1, 67–156.
12.
CapaldiE. J. (1994). The sequential view: From rapidly fading stimulus traces to the organization of memory and the abstract concept of number.Psychonomic Bulletin & Revierl, 156–181.
13.
DalyH. B.DalyJ. T. (1982). A mathematical model of reward and aversive nonreward: Its application to over 30 appetive learning situations.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General6, 441–480.
14.
DarbyR. J.PearceJ. M. (1995). Effects of context on responding during a compound stimulus.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes21, 143–154.
15.
DickinsonA.BalleineB. (1994). Motivational control of goal-directed action.Animal Learning & Behavior22, 1–18.
16.
GrahameN. J.HallamS. C.GeierL.MillerR. R. (1990). Context as an occasion setter following either CS acquisition and extinction or CS acquisition alone.Learning and Motivation21, 237–265.
17.
HallG. (1991). Perceptual and associative learningOxford: Clarendon Press.
18.
HallG.HoneyR. C. (1989). Contextual effects in conditioning, latent inhibition, and habituation: Associative and retrieval functions of contextual cues.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes1, 232–241.
19.
HallG.HoneyR. C. (1990). Context-specific conditioning in the conditioned-emotional-response procedure.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes16, 271–278.
20.
HoneyR. C.WillisA.HallG. (1990). Context specificity in pigeon autoshaping.Learning ana Motivation21, 125–136.
21.
KayeH.MackintoshN. J. (1990). A change of context can enhance performance of an aversive but not of an appetitive conditioned response.The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology42B, 113–134.
22.
KayeH.PearceJ. M. (1984). The strength of the orienting response during Palvovian conditioning.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes10, 90–109.
23.
LovibondP. F.PrestonG. C.MackintoshN. J. (1984). Context specificity of conditioning, extinction, and latent inhibition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes10, 360–375.
24.
NelsonJ. B. (1997). The context specificity of second learned informationUniversity of Vermont Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
25.
NelsonJ. B.BoutonM. E. (1997). The effects of a context switch following serial and simultaneous feature-negative discriminations.Learning and Motivation28, 56–84.
26.
PearceJ. M.HallG. (1980). A model for Pavlovian learning: Variations in the effectiveness of conditioned but not of unconditioned stimuli.Psychological Review87, 532–552.
27.
PearceJ. M.RedheadE. S.AydinA. (1997). Partial reinforcement in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning with rats.The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology50B, 273–294.
28.
PrestonG. C.DickinsonA.MackintoshN. J. (1986). Contextual conditional discriminations.The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology38B, 217–237.
29.
RosasJ. M.BoutonM. E. (1998). Conteitchange and retention interval can have additive, rather than interactive, effects after taste aversion extinction.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review5, 79–83.
30.
SwartzentruberD.BoutonM. E. (1992). Context sensitivity of conditioned suppression following preexposure to the conditioned stimulus.Animal Learning & Behavior20, 97–103.
31.
WagnerA. R. (1981). SOP: A model of automatic memory processing in animal behavior.Information processing in animals: Memory mechanisms.SpearN. E.MillerR. R.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc5–47.
