Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli

Two experiments investigated the effect of the temporal distribution form of a stimulus on its ability to produce an overshadowing effect. The overshadowing stimuli were either of the same duration on every trial, or of a variable duration drawn from an exponential distribution with the same mean du...

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Main Authors: Bonardi, Charlotte, Mondragón, Esther, Brilot, Ben, Jennings, Dómhnall J.
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46925/
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author Bonardi, Charlotte
Mondragón, Esther
Brilot, Ben
Jennings, Dómhnall J.
author_facet Bonardi, Charlotte
Mondragón, Esther
Brilot, Ben
Jennings, Dómhnall J.
author_sort Bonardi, Charlotte
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Two experiments investigated the effect of the temporal distribution form of a stimulus on its ability to produce an overshadowing effect. The overshadowing stimuli were either of the same duration on every trial, or of a variable duration drawn from an exponential distribution with the same mean duration as that of the fixed stimulus. Both experiments provided evidence that a variable-duration stimulus was less effective than a fixed-duration cue at overshadowing conditioning to a target conditioned stimulus (CS); moreover, this effect was independent of whether the overshadowed CS was fixed or variable. The findings presented here are consistent with the idea that the strength of the association between CS and unconditioned stimulus (US) is, in part, determined by the temporal distribution form of the CS. These results are discussed in terms of time-accumulation and trial-based theories of conditioning and timing.
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spelling nottingham-469252020-05-04T20:10:36Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46925/ Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli Bonardi, Charlotte Mondragón, Esther Brilot, Ben Jennings, Dómhnall J. Two experiments investigated the effect of the temporal distribution form of a stimulus on its ability to produce an overshadowing effect. The overshadowing stimuli were either of the same duration on every trial, or of a variable duration drawn from an exponential distribution with the same mean duration as that of the fixed stimulus. Both experiments provided evidence that a variable-duration stimulus was less effective than a fixed-duration cue at overshadowing conditioning to a target conditioned stimulus (CS); moreover, this effect was independent of whether the overshadowed CS was fixed or variable. The findings presented here are consistent with the idea that the strength of the association between CS and unconditioned stimulus (US) is, in part, determined by the temporal distribution form of the CS. These results are discussed in terms of time-accumulation and trial-based theories of conditioning and timing. Taylor & Francis 2015 Article PeerReviewed Bonardi, Charlotte, Mondragón, Esther, Brilot, Ben and Jennings, Dómhnall J. (2015) Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68 (3). pp. 523-542. ISSN 1747-0226 Rats Timing Overshadowing Associative learning Stimulus distribution form http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470218.2014.960875 doi:10.1080/17470218.2014.960875 doi:10.1080/17470218.2014.960875
spellingShingle Rats
Timing
Overshadowing
Associative learning
Stimulus distribution form
Bonardi, Charlotte
Mondragón, Esther
Brilot, Ben
Jennings, Dómhnall J.
Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli
title Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli
title_full Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli
title_fullStr Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli
title_full_unstemmed Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli
title_short Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli
title_sort overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli
topic Rats
Timing
Overshadowing
Associative learning
Stimulus distribution form
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46925/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46925/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46925/