Perceived stress and renewal: The effects of long-term stress on the renewal effect.

Two online experiments evaluated the relationship between long-term stress, as measured with the Perceived Stress Scale-10, and the Renewal Effect. In the first experiment renewal was assessed with a behavioral suppression task in a science-fiction based video game. Participants learned to suppress mouse clicking during a signal for an upcoming attack to avoid losing points. The signal was first paired with an attack in Context A and extinguished in Context B and tested back in Context A. The contexts were different space galaxies where the gameplay took place. Experiment 2 used a food/illness predictive-learning paradigm. Two food items were paired with stomachache in one restaurant (A) and extinguished in Context B prior to testing in both contexts without feedback. Positive correlations were obtained between renewal and stress in each experiment. Unlike acute stress (Drexler et al., 2017), long term stress was associated with greater renewal. The effects of stress, both chronic and punctual, on renewal are discussed.

Latent inhibition in humans from simple stimulus exposure.

Two experiments observed an effect consistent with a latent-inhibition (LI) effect in humans that (a) did not depend on masking or instruction-generated expectations and (b) suggested that the effect results from a change in processing of the predictive cue. Participants viewed a video of a superhero character flying through three different contexts past a different stimulus in each context. In conditioning, The superhero flew past a target cue that was either Novel (Group No Exposure), had been preexposed in the Same context as where conditioning was occurring (Group Same), or was preexposed in a Different context (Group Different). Each time the superhero flew past the target cue his Hands Glowed (outcome). On test (E1), an image of the superhero flying in the context with normal Hands and the target cue was present. Participants were asked if anything was missing. Experiment 2 tested participants with the superhero present and his Hands Glowing to test outcome-cue associations (Test 1) or just the superhero in the context (Test 2, counterbalanced) to assess contextual associations. In E1 fewer people in Group Same reported the outcome missing than Group No Exposure or Group Different. In E2 fewer people in Group Same reported the target cue missing when presented with the outcome than in the other groups, a result inconsistent with interference accounts of LI. When presented only with contextual cues, reports of the stimulus missing showed that the context was associated with the stimuli presented within it. Results are discussed with respect to theories and demonstrations of human LI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The effects of stimulus pre-exposure and conditioning on overt visual attention.

Three experiments (a, b, c) combined to provide a well-powered examination of the effects of stimulus pre-exposure and conditioning on visual attention using an eye tracker and a space-shooter video game where a colored flashing light predicted an attacking spaceship. In each, group "control" received no pre-exposure to the light, group "same" received pre-exposure in the same context as conditioning, and group "different" received pre-exposure in a different context. Experiments differed in visual details regarding the game (1a vs. 1b and 1c) or minor details in the setup of the eye tracker (1a and 1b vs. 1c). Overall, pre-exposure retarded acquisition of keyboard responding. That effect was enhanced, rather than attenuated, by a context change. Separating participants by sign and goal trackers showed the context change enhanced the pre-exposure effect in goal trackers and reduced it in sign trackers. Visual attention to the light declined during pre-exposure and did not recover with either conditioning or a context switch. Visual attention to the light decreased during conditioning. Visual goal tracking toward where the spaceship would appear was also retarded with pre-exposure. Unlike the keyboard responding, a context change led to more normal goal-tracking acquisition. Results are discussed in terms of theories of attention and the potential effects of demand characteristics on the task. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Response reduction and stimulus pre-exposure effects in a human conditioning method.

Two experiments with humans determined whether reduced conditioning following pre-exposure to the conditioned stimulus could be explained by conditioned inhibition (Experiment 1 [E1]) or extinction of responding that the conditioned stimulus (CS) might elicit during pre-exposure (Experiment 2 [E2]). In a video game task (Nelson et al., 2014), participants learned to respond to lights that signaled attacking spaceships. In E1, a red light was either pre-exposed or not pre-exposed between groups prior to conditioning with a green light. Summation tests of red combined with green produced no evidence of conditioned inhibition. In E2, participants received either no pre-exposure to the light, exposure in the same context in which the conditioning would occur, or exposure in a different context. These conditions were factorially combined with whether the light and spaceship were similar (same color) or dissimilar (different colors). In the similar conditions, the light elicited weak responding during pre-exposure, which extinguished. Such extinction did not occur in the dissimilar conditions. Conditioning occurred more rapidly in the similar conditions than in the dissimilar ones, but both conditions showed an equivalent context-dependent pre-exposure effect. Pre-exposure reduced conditioning regardless of whether it reduced responding prior to conditioning. The data are consistent with animal research (Lubow et al., 1968) showing no relation between responding during pre-exposure and the effects of stimulus pre-exposure. Theories which account for the effects of stimulus pre-exposure are discussed, with the conclusion that the data are most consistent with the ideas presented by Wagner (1981). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Extinction contexts fail to transfer control: Implications for conditioned inhibition and occasion-setting accounts of renewal.

The renewal effect is often explained as a side effect of the extinction context acting as a negative occasion setter. Four experiments tested whether extinction contexts show the selective-transfer property of occasion setters. Experiments 1-3 used a predictive judgment task where participants rated the probability of certain foods (cues) producing gastric malaise (outcomes) in different restaurants (contexts). Experiment 4 used a behavioral suppression task where sensor lights (cues) served as signals to suppress firing responses in certain galaxies (contexts). All 4 (Experiments 1-4) addressed whether a potentially negative occasion-setting context transferred its modulatory power to an extinguished (presumably occasion set) target in the test phase of an ABC renewal design. Experiments 2-4 further assessed the possibility that the extinction context acts as a conditioned inhibitor by testing a simple excitor on a context where extinction occurred. Neither selective (occasion-setting) nor nonselective transfer (conditioned inhibition) was demonstrated. Implications for theories of renewal and occasion-setting are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Reversal training facilitates acquisition of new learning in a Morris water maze.

Two experiments determined the effect of interference training on subsequent spatial learning in a Morris water maze. Rats first learned that a platform was located in a quadrant marked by landmarks A and B. Different groups of rats either continued or reversed that training. In the reversal condition the platform was opposite to the initially trained quadrant. On test, a new cue, C, was added and the platform was located in the new AC quadrant. Rats that had received the reversal training learned the location of the new platform faster than rats trained with the same platform throughout. In Experiment 2, phase 1 training was conducted by placing the rats on the platforms to ensure that they were located. Experimental rats received a reversal of the platform position in phase 2. A control group received training with both platforms present, and thus had experience with each. When the platform was then located in the new AC quadrant the rats that received reversal training learned the new location faster than those without reversal training. Results are discussed in terms of the effect of interference on the arousal of general attention.

Intensity effects in human cue-outcome learning.

Literature on conditioned stimulus intensity effects is briefly reviewed and one experiment presented with human subjects and a video-game method. The intensity (Bright or Dim) or color (Red or Blue) of a cue that predicted the appearance of a spaceship was manipulated. Testing was conducted with either the alternate brightness or the alternate color. Responding to the cue was unaffected by its intensity in training. During testing, a downshift in brightness decreased responding while an upshift had no effect, suggesting an asymmetrical intensity gradient. Red tended to condition better than Blue in the first phase, but the same participants conditioned better in the second phase to Blue. The results are discussed with respect to prior demonstrations of intensity effects using within-subject designs and favor an explanation based on stimulus-sampling theory.

Conditioned anticipatory outcome searching in humans.

Two experiments used eye tracking to examine visual searching for expected outcomes in humans during an associative-learning task. In both, participants learned to press keys on a keyboard to activate weapons to repel invading spaceships in the presence of predictive "sensors." In both experiments, eye tracking showed that participants came to direct their overt visual attention to the portions of the screen where the spaceship would arrive during the presentation of the sensor in a cue-specific manner. Participants also directed attention to the weapon that was used to repel the spaceship. The same results were observed regardless of whether participants were responding on the keyboard, or not (Experiment 2). Pupil dilations occurred to the appearance of the spaceship from the first trial and occurred to the predictive sensor stimuli on later trials in both experiments, suggesting that they might be conditioned responses. In Experiment 2 participants again looked for the expected outcome, but dilations to the predictive stimuli were shown to be an artifact of responding and not due to conditioning. The discussion involves the implications for investigating attention to predictive stimuli using eye trackers, roles of context in behavior, and the utility of outcome searching and pupil dilations as indexes of learning.

Learning to learn in conditioning and extinction in humans.

Learning to Learn (LTL) is the transfer of learning, separate from stimulus generalization, that appears across tasks that share a similar structure. Three experiments examined this phenomenon in both conditioning and extinction learning in humans. The latter effect is of special interest given the failures in the literature to obtain transfer of extinction between stimuli. Conditioning and extinction with one stimulus increased the rate of conditioning and, surprisingly, extinction of a different stimulus (Experiment 1). The effects appeared in the absence of physical generalization. The transfer of extinction was not enhanced by conditions that increased the chances of a mediated extinction effect (Experiment 2). Finally, Experiment 3 ruled out three possible sources for the effect in extinction: a common unconditioned-stimulus representation, a common reinforcement history, and within-stimuli associations. Overall, the findings are consistent with the idea that LTL is an emergent (non-immediate) form of mediated generalization that is dependent upon memory structures retrieved by trial outcomes. The over- or under-prediction of the outcome on the first trial with a new task might retrieve prior episodes associated with similar prediction errors promoting transfer.

The effects of extinction-aroused attention on context conditioning.

Two experiments assessed the effects of extinguishing a conditioned cue on subsequent context conditioning. Each experiment used a different video-game method where sensors predicted attacking spaceships and participants responded to the sensor in a way that prepared them for the upcoming attack. In Experiment 1 extinction of a cue which signaled a spaceship-attack outcome facilitated subsequent learning when the attack occurred unsignaled. In Experiment 2 extinction of a cue facilitated subsequent learning, regardless of whether the spaceship outcome was the same or different as used in the earlier training. In neither experiment did the extinction context become inhibitory. Results are discussed in terms of current associative theories of attention and conditioning.

Recovery of attention with renewal.

One experiment determined the relationship between renewed associative strength and attention. Following cue1-outcome pairings in Context A, cue1 was extinguished in Context B while cue2 was conditioned. On test cue2 was chosen as a predictor of the outcome in Context B. Both cues were chosen equally often as predictors in Context A. Consistent with attributing attention to effective associative strength (as noted in a previous study), participants could locate only cue2 in Context B while both were located in Context A, regardless of having been chosen as a predictor. Attention varied as a function of both cues' associative strengths across contexts.

Ambiguity produces attention shifts in category learning.

It has been suggested that people and nonhuman animals protect their knowledge from interference by shifting attention toward the context when presented with information that contradicts their previous beliefs. Despite that suggestion, no studies have directly measured changes in attention while participants are exposed to an interference treatment. In the present experiments, we adapted a dot-probe task to track participants' attention to cues and contexts while they were completing a simple category learning task. The results support the hypothesis that interference produces a change in the allocation of attention to cues and contexts.

Contextual control of conditioning is not affected by extinction in a behavioral task with humans.

The Attentional Theory of Context Processing (ATCP) states that extinction will arouse attention to contexts resulting in learning becoming contextually controlled. Participants learned to suppress responding to colored sensors in a video-game task where contexts were provided by different gameplay backgrounds. Four experiments assessed the contextual control of simple excitatory learning acquired to a test stimulus (T) after (Exp. 1) or during (Exp. 2-4) extinction of another stimulus (X). Experiment 1 produced no evidence of contextual control of T, though renewal to X was present both at the time T was trained and tested. In Experiment 2 no contextual control of T was evident when X underwent extensive conditioning and extinction. In Experiment 3 no contextual control of T was evident after extensive conditioning and extinction of X, and renewal to X was present. In Experiment 4 contextual control was evident to T, but it neither depended upon nor was enhanced by extinction of X. The results presented here appear to limit the generality of ATCP.

Integration of multiple memories in sensory preconditioning.

The present study demonstrates that humans' response to a single stimulus (S1) is determined by what follows S1's associates. The experiment used a sensory preconditioning (SPC) design where S1 was associated with both S2 and S3 on separate trials before establishing relationships between these latter stimuli with an outcome or its absence in a second phase. When S2 and S3 were associated with the same consequence, either an outcome or its absence, strong consequence-based responding to S1 was observed in a reaction time test. Participants responded quickly to indicate that the outcome was, or was not, predicted by S1. When S2 predicted the outcome and S3 did not, SPC was weaker although participants were not slower to respond to S1. Implications on the understanding of the mechanisms that allow for the response to S1 to emerge are discussed.

An easy-to-hard effect after nonreinforced preexposure in a sweetness discrimination.

Experiments 1A and 1B used a taste-aversion procedure with rats to demonstrate that exposure to easily discriminated flavors along a dimension (1 % and 10 % sucrose) can facilitate learning a subsequent hard discrimination (4 % and 7 % sucrose) when one of those flavors is paired with illness. Experiment 1A compared the effects of preexposure to the easily discriminated flavors against exposure to the same stimuli used in the discrimination training or no exposure at all. Experiment 1B replicated the conditions in Experiment 1A, with 2 additional days of training and unrestricted access to the flavors on CS+/CS- trials in discrimination training. Contrary to findings with multidimensional stimuli (Scahill & Mackintosh, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 30, 96-103, 2004; Suret & McLaren, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56B, 30-42, 2003), we found that preexposure to the easily discriminable stimuli varying along a single dimension of sweetness facilitated subsequent discrimination training over the other conditions in each experiment. We discuss the results in terms of the ideas presented by Gibson (1969) and Mackintosh (Psychological Review, 82, 276-298, 1975) and in terms of hedonic variables not considered by theories of perceptual learning.

Presentation and validation of "The Learning Game," a tool to study associative learning in humans.

This article presents a 3-D science-fiction-based videogame method to study learning, and two experiments that we used to validate it. In this method, participants are first trained to respond to enemy spaceships (Stimulus 2, or S2) with particular keypresses, followed by transport to a new context (galaxy), where other manipulations can occur. During conditioning, colored flashing lights (Stimulus 1, or S1) can predict S2, and the response attached to S2 from the prior phase comes to be evoked by S1. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that, in accord with previous findings from animals, conditioning in this procedure was positively related to the ratio of the time between trials to the time within a trial. Experiment 2 demonstrated the phenomena of extinction, timing, and renewal. Responding to S1 was slightly lost with a context change, and diminished over trials in the absence of S2. On early extinction trials, responding during S1 declined after the time that S2 normally occurred. Extinguished responding to S1 recovered robustly with a context change.

Extinction produces context inhibition and multiple-context extinction reduces response recovery in human predictive learning.

Two experiments with human participants were used to investigate recovery of an extinguished learned response after a context change using ABC designs. In an ABC design, the context changes over the three successive stages of acquisition (context A), extinction (context B), and test (context C). In both experiments, we found reduced recovery in groups that had extinction in multiple contexts, and that the extinction contexts acquired inhibitory strength. These results confirm those of previous investigations, that multiple-context extinction can produce less response recovery than single-context extinction, and they also provide new evidence for the involvement of contextual inhibitory processes in extinction in humans. The foregoing results are broadly in line with a protection-from-extinction account of response recovery. Yet, despite the fact that we detected contextual inhibition, predictions based on protection-from-extinction were not fully reliable for the single- and multiple-context group differences that we observed in (1) rates of extinction and (2) the strength of context inhibition. Thus, although evidence was obtained for a protection-from-extinction account of response recovery, this account can not explain all of the data.

Extinction arouses attention to the context in a behavioral suppression method with humans.

One experiment assessed predictions from the attentional theory of context processing (ATCP, J. M. Rosas, J. E. Callejas-Aguilera, M. M. Ramos-Álvarez, & M. J. F. Abad, 2006, Revision of retrieval theory of forgetting: What does make information context-specific? International Journal of Psychology & Psychological Therapy, Vol. 6, pp. 147-166) that extinction arouses attention to contextual stimuli. In a video-game method, participants learned a biconditional discrimination (RG+/BG-/RY-/BY+) either after extinction of another stimulus had occurred, or not. When contextual stimuli were relevant to solving the discrimination (i.e., all RG+/BG- trials occurred in one context and all RY-/BY+ in another), prior extinction of another stimulus facilitated the discrimination, as if extinction enhanced attention to the contexts. Results are discussed briefly in terms of ATCP and the model of N. A. Schmajuk, Y. W. Lam, & J. A. Gray (1996, Latent inhibition: A neural network approach, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, Vol. 22, pp. 321-349).

The extinction context enables extinction performance after a change in context.

One experiment with human participants determined the extent to which recovery of extinguished responding with a context switch was due to a failure to retrieve contextually controlled learning, or some other process such as participants learning that context changes signal reversals in the meaning of stimulus-outcome relationships. In a video game, participants learned to suppress mouse clicking in the presence of a stimulus that predicted an attack. Then, that stimulus underwent extinction in a different context (environment within the game). Following extinction, suppression was recovered and then extinguished again during testing in the conditioning context. In a final test, participants that were tested in the context where extinction first took place showed less of a recovery than those tested in a neutral context, but they showed a recovery of suppression nevertheless. A change in context tended to cause a change in the meaning of the stimulus, leading to recovery in both the neutral and extinction contexts. The extinction context attenuated that recovery, perhaps by enabling retrieval of the learning that took place in extinction. Recovery outside an extinction context is due to a failure of the context to enable the learning acquired during extinction, but only in part.

Concurrent extinction does not render appetitive conditioning context specific.

In an experiment with rats, an appetitive conditioning method was used to investigate the generality of the hypothesis that extinction should arouse attention to contextual cues, resulting in all learning in that context becoming context specific. Rats received appetitive conditioning with a tone either while extinction of a flasher occurred (Group With Extinction) or while it did not (Group No Extinction). Half of each group was subsequently tested in extinction in the context in which training had taken place or in a different context. The results revealed a three-way interaction of extinction and context with trials, in a direction opposite to the one the hypothesis would suggest. When rats were tested in a different context, there was generally better responding in Group With Extinction than in Group No Extinction. In the same context, there was generally lower responding in Group With Extinction than in Group No Extinction. Subsequent testing showed an ABA recovery effect. Results are discussed in terms of the challenges they pose for the revised retrieval theory presented by Callejas-Aguilera and Rosas (2011).