Familiarity-based stimulus generalization of conditioned suppression

We report that stimulus novelty/familiarity is able to modulate stimulus generalization and discuss the theoretical implications of novelty/familiarity coding. Rats in Skinner boxes received clicker → shock pairings before generalization testing to a tone. Before clicker training, different groups o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Robinson, Jasper, Whitt, Emma, Jones, Peter M.
Format: Article
Published: American Psychological Association 2017
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39901/
Description
Summary:We report that stimulus novelty/familiarity is able to modulate stimulus generalization and discuss the theoretical implications of novelty/familiarity coding. Rats in Skinner boxes received clicker → shock pairings before generalization testing to a tone. Before clicker training, different groups of rats received preexposure treatments designed to systematically modulate the clicker and the tone's novelty and familiarity. Rats whose preexposure matched novelty/familiarity (i.e., either both or neither clicker and tone were pre-exposed) showed enhanced suppression to the tone relative to rats whose preexposure mixed novelty/familiarity (i.e., only clicker or tone was pre-exposed). This was not the result of sensory preconditioning to clicker and tone.