The eye blink as a time-locked response: implications for serial and second-order conditioning.
A series of experiments were conducted to determine what factors control responding to the first element of a two-element serial compound in rabbit eyelid conditioning. An examination of response topography indicated that the eye-blink CR is rigidly timed to occur when the US is expected. This response-system characteristic prevents the occurrence of a CR during the first element of a serial compound or during the second-order CS in second-order conditioning. The comparison of a serial gap procedure with conventional serial and trace conditioning procedures suggested that the associative strength of the first element of a serial CS is not strongly influenced by either a second-order conditioning process or by the variable-reinforcement principle.
D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003215:Conditioning, Eyelid; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D008297:Male; D011817:Rabbits; D011930:Reaction Time; D012691:Serial Learning; D014163:Transfer, Psychology