title: Enhancement and reduction of associative retroactive cue interference by training in multiple contexts.
abstract: Retroactive cue interference refers to situations in which a target cue X is paired with an outcome in phase 1 and a nontarget cue Z is paired with the same outcome in phase 2, with less subsequent responding to X being seen as a result of the phase 2 training. Two conditioned suppression experiments with rats were conducted to determine whether retroactive cue interference is similarly modulated by a manipulation that influences retroactive outcome interference (e.g., extinction). Both experiments used an ABC renewal-like design in which phase 1 training, phase 2 training, and testing each occurred in different contexts. Experiment 1 found that training the target association in multiple contexts without altering the number of training trials during phase 1 decreased retroactive cue interference (i.e., increased responding consistent with the target association). Experiment 2 found that training the interfering association in multiple contexts without altering the number of interference trials during phase 2 increased retroactive cue interference (i.e., decreased responding consistent with the target association). The possibility of similar mechanisms underlying cue interference and outcome interference is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicologia, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Gonzalo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Miguez
authors.forename: Mario A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Laborda
authors.forename: Ralph R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley