Abstract
Water-deprived rats served in a conditioned lick-suppression experiment designed to test the hypothesis that second-order conditioning is more robust than sensory preconditioning with equivalent parameters. The second-order and sensory preconditioning paradigms are identical except for the ordering of Phase 1 and Phase 2. In second-order conditioning, S1 immediately precedes the US during Phase 1 (i.e., S1→US), and S2 immediately precedes S1 during Phase 2 (i.e., S2→S1). In sensory preconditioning, these phases are reversed, such that S2 precedes S1 during Phase 1 (i.e., S2→SI) and S1 precedes the US during Phase 2 (i.e., SI→US). Thus, in second-order conditioning, S1 becomes excitatory prior to S2-S1 pairings. This would suggest a positive bias toward attending to S1 during S2-S1 pairings in second-order conditioning but not in sensory preconditioning, a condition that might render second-order conditioning more effective. The results indicated the presence of both second-order conditioning and sensory preconditioning effects, but they did not support the hypothesis that second-order conditioning is a more robust conditioning phenomenon than sensory preconditioning.
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Support of this research was provided by National Institute of Mental Health Grant 33881 and the SUNY-Binghamton Center for Cognitive and Psycholinguistic Sciences. Thanks are due to Josh Sloat for his assistance in data collection and Steve C. Hallam for his comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Barnet, R.C., Grahame, N.J. & Miller, R.R. Comparing the magnitudes of second-order conditioning and sensory preconditioning effects. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 29, 133–135 (1991). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335215
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335215