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The effect of change in US quality on the blocking effect

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Abstract

If one CS is paired with a US and then that CS together with a “redundant” stimulus is paired with the US, conditioning of that “redundant” stimulus is attenuated or blocked. The present experiment explores the effect upon this blocking of changing the quality of the US coincident with the introduction of the redundant stimulus. Changing US quality disrupted blocking only when the US potency was also increased. Quality changes in which the redundant stimulus was correlated with a lower potency US only increased blocking. These results are taken as supporting the conditioning model of Rescorla and Wagner but inconsistent with a casual informational model of conditioning.

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References

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  • Rescorla, R. A.: Informational variables in Pavlovian conditioning.In G. H. Bower (Ed.)The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 6. 1972.

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Author notes

  1. Curtis W. Bakal & Randall D. Johnson

    Present address: Harvard Medical School, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yale University, USA

    Curtis W. Bakal, Randall D. Johnson & Robert A. Rescorla

Authors
  1. Curtis W. Bakal
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  2. Randall D. Johnson
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  3. Robert A. Rescorla
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Additional information

This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant GB-12897 and GB-28703X. Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert A. Rescorla, Department of Psychology, Yale University, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06510.

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Bakal, C.W., Johnson, R.D. & Rescorla, R.A. The effect of change in US quality on the blocking effect. Pav. J. Biol. Sci. 9, 97–103 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03000529

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03000529

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