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ERIC Number: EJ730798
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Aug
Pages: 22
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0023-9690
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Past Experience Influences the Processing of Stimulus Compounds in Human Pavlovian Conditioning
Melchers, Klaus G.; Lachnit, Harold; Shanks, David R.
Learning and Motivation, v35 n3 p167-188 Aug 2004
In two human skin conductance conditioning experiments we investigated whether processing of stimulus compounds can be influenced by past experience. Participants were either pre-trained with a discrimination problem that could be solved elementally (A+, B-, AB+, C- in Experiment 1 and A+, AB+, C-, CB- in Experiment 2) or one that required a configural solution (AB+, BC-, CD+, DA- in Experiment 1 and A-, AB+, C+, CB- in Experiment 2). After pre-training, participants were shown an EX+, FX- discrimination. Subsequently, responding to individual components (E and F) was tested. After elemental pre-training, participants showed larger responses to the component from the previously reinforced compound (E) than to the component from the nonreinforced compound (F) whereas no such difference was found after configural pre-training. This means that the kind of pre-training influenced whether the later discrimination problem was processed elementally or configurally. The results indicate that organisms can flexibly process stimulus compounds in different ways.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A