Occasion-setting training renders stimuli more similar: acquired equivalence between the targets of feature-positive discriminations.
In two experiments rats received training on two concurrent appetitive feature-positive discriminations. A preliminary test in Experiment 1 confirmed previous demonstrations of the transfer of occasion-setting properties--the feature from one of these discriminations was better able to facilitate responding to the occasion-set target CS from the second discrimination than to a control stimulus that had not been the subject of occasion-setting. The source of this transfer was investigated in a second phase of training, and in Experiment 2. In both experiments one of the occasion-set CSs was paired with food, and generalization of appetitive conditioned responding from this stimulus to the second occasion-set CS, and to a control cue, was examined. There was more generalization from the first occasion-set CS to the second CS that had also been occasion-set than to the control cue. This is taken as evidence that occasion-set CSs are rendered more similar as a result of their common training history. The implications of these findings for explaining transfer of occasion setting are discussed.
Bonardi
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C
Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, U.K.
Hall
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G
D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005795:Generalization, Stimulus; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D051381:Rats; D014163:Transfer, Psychology