Abstract
A conditioned suppression experiment using rat subjects examined the extent to which contextual control of performance to a conditioned stimulus (CS) transfers to another CS trained in a similar manner. Two contextual discriminations were produced by alternating reinforced and nonreinforced tone CS presentations in Context A and Context B, respectively, and reinforced and nonreinforced presentations of a light-off CS in Context C and Context D, respectively. When the light-off CS was tested in Context A, the context facilitated suppression to the CS, suggesting transfer of Context A’s modulating ability from the tone to the light-off. These results suggest that the tone discrimination was not due solely to the generation of configural cues between Context A and the tone. They also support the similarity between contexts and other higher level modulators of CS performance, such as facilitators and occasion setters, whose modulating abilities have also been shown to transfer between separate but similarly trained CSs.
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This research was supported by Grant BNS 86-07208 from the National Science Foundation. We thank Michael Fanselow for his comments on the manuscript.
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Swartzentruber, D., Bouton, M.E. Transfer of positive contextual control across different conditioned stimuli. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 26, 569–572 (1988). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330124
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330124