Abstract
In long-delay conditioning, a long conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired in its final segments with an unconditioned stimulus. With sufficient training, this procedure usually results in conditioned responding being delayed until the final segment of the CS, a pattern of responding known as inhibition of delay. However, there have been no systematic investigations of the associative structure of long delay conditioning, and whether the initial segment of a long delay CS actually becomes inhibitory is debatable. In an appetitive preparation with rat subjects, the initial segment of long delay CS A passed a retardation (Experiment 1a) but not a summation (Experiment 1b) test for conditioned inhibition. Furthermore, retardation was observed only if long delay conditioning and retardation training occurred in the same context (Experiment 2). Thus, the initial segment of a long delay CS appears to share more characteristics with a latent inhibitor than a conditioned inhibitor. Componential theories of conditioning appear best suited to account for these results.
Highlights
IntroductionA conditioned stimulus (CS) can have one of three relationships to the unconditioned stimulus (US): The CS may provide no information about the US occurrence (neutrality), it may provide information about US delivery (excitation), or it may provide information about US omission (inhibition)
In general terms, a conditioned stimulus (CS) can have one of three relationships to the unconditioned stimulus (US): The CS may provide no information about the US occurrence, it may provide information about US delivery, or it may provide information about US omission
To ensure that responding to the long and short delay CSs had reached equivalent levels at the end of training across groups, a 2 × 2 × 2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on the last probe trial administered during the long delay conditioning training phase
Summary
A conditioned stimulus (CS) can have one of three relationships to the unconditioned stimulus (US): The CS may provide no information about the US occurrence (neutrality), it may provide information about US delivery (excitation), or it may provide information about US omission (inhibition). Long stimuli trained to signal US delivery in their final segment (so-called long delay conditioning training) usually elicit little conditioned responding during their initial segment. Pavlov (1927) coined the term inhibition of delay to describe this pattern of behavior and to reflect his assumption that inhibitory processes operated during long delay conditioning and resulted in delaying of the conditioned response until the moment in which the US occurred. This inhibitory process was disrupted if a novel stimulus was presented simultaneously with the long delay CS, which resulted in an immediate elicitation of the conditioned response (i.e., disinhibition). The initial segment of the CS attenuated fear of the highly excitatory experimental
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