The effects of habituation training on compound conditioning are not reversed by an associative activation treatment.
Rats received habituation to either 2 compound flavors (AX and BY; the activation group) or a compound and an element alone (AX and Y; the habituation group). They also received additional presentations of Y alone either after (Experiment 1) or intermixed (Experiment 2) with habituation. In the habituation group, A had undergone habituation whereas B had not; in the activation group, both A and B had undergone habituation, but presenting Y alone should result in associative activation of B and that, according to G. Hall (2003), should increase B's efficacy. A supplementary experiment demonstrated that the presentation of Y does activate a representation of B. In both experiments, an aversion was established to AB, and subsequently the habituation group showed a greater aversion to B than to A. However, in neither experiment was there any indication that the activation group showed a greater aversion to B than to A. These results are inconsistent with the suggestion that the associative activation of a stimulus representation in the absence of the stimulus reverses the effects of habituation training.
Dwyer
Dominic M
DM
School of PsychologyCardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom. DwyerDM@cardiff.ac.uk
Honey
R C
RC
D000818:Animals; D001244:Association; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D013663:Teaching