Associative interference in Pavlovian conditioning: A function of similarity between the interfering and target associative structures

Three lever-press suppression studies were conducted with water-deprived rats to investigate the role of similarity in proactive interference within first-order Pavlovian conditioning. Experiments 1a and 1b assessed the influence of stimulus complexity in proactive interference. Both experiments found greater interference when the interfering cue and target cue were composed of the same number of elements. Experiment 2 assessed the influence of context similarity in proactive interference and demonstrated that stronger proactive interference occurred when the interfering cue and the target cue were trained in the same context. The results in conjunction with other reports indicate that various types of cue interaction (e.g., interference and competition) are influenced by similarity of the interacting training events.

[1]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  CS-US temporal relations in blocking , 2008, Learning & behavior.

[2]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  Proactive interference between cues trained with a common outcome in first-order Pavlovian conditioning. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.

[3]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  Timing in retroactive interference , 2003, Learning & behavior.

[4]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  Associative interference between cues and between outcomes presented together and presented apart: an integration , 2002, Behavioural Processes.

[5]  R. R. Miller,et al.  Cues trained apart compete for behavioral control in rats: convergence with the associative interference literature. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[6]  N. Mackintosh,et al.  An elemental model of associative learning: I. Latent inhibition and perceptual learning , 2000 .

[7]  C. Gallistel,et al.  Time, rate, and conditioning. , 2000, Psychological review.

[8]  H. Matute,et al.  Stimulus competition in the absence of compound conditioning , 1998 .

[9]  R. R. Miller,et al.  Temporal encoding as a determinant of blocking. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.

[10]  M. Bouton.  Context, time, and memory retrieval in the interference paradigms of Pavlovian learning. , 1993, Psychological bulletin.

[11]  G. Hall,et al.  Context specificity of conditioning in flavor-aversion learning: Extinction and blocking tests , 1990 .

[12]  Schreurs Bg,et al.  The effects of changes in the CS-US interval during compound conditioning upon an other wise blocked element , 1982 .

[13]  J. Pearce,et al.  A model for Pavlovian learning: variations in the effectiveness of conditioned but not of unconditioned stimuli. , 1980, Psychological review.

[14]  V. Lolordo,et al.  Preconditioning exposure to the unconditined stimulus affects the acquisition of a conditioned emotional response , 1979 .

[15]  Colin M. Macleod.  Release from Proactive Interference: Insufficiency of an Attentional Account. , 1975 .

[16]  N. Mackintosh.  A Theory of Attention: Variations in the Associability of Stimuli with Reinforcement , 1975 .

[17]  B. Underwood,et al.  Critical issues in interference theory , 1973, Memory & cognition.

[18]  William A. Johnston,et al.  Bidirectional interference in an A-B, C-B paradigm , 1968 .

[19]  L. Kamin.  Attention-like processes in classical conditioning , 1967 .

[20]  D. Wickens,et al.  Proactive inhibition and item similarity in short-term memory , 1963 .

[21]  J. Ceraso,et al.  Retroactive and proactive inhibition of verbal learning. , 1960 .

[22]  K. S. Lashley,et al.  An Examination of the “Continuity Theory” as Applied to Discriminative Learning , 1942 .

[23]  S. Britt.  Retroactive inhibition: a review of the literature. , 1935 .

[24]  Edward S. Robinson,et al.  The 'Similarity' Factor in Retroaction , 1927 .

[25]  J. Pearce,et al.  Theories of associative learning in animals. , 2001, Annual review of psychology.

[26]  R. R. Miller,et al.  Posttraining shifts in the overshadowing stimulus-unconditioned stimulus interval alleviates the overshadowing deficit. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.

[27]  R. R. Miller,et al.  Temporal encoding as a determinant of overshadowing. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.

[28]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  The comparator hypothesis: A response rule for the expression of associations. , 1988 .

[29]  J. Pearce.  A model for stimulus generalization in Pavlovian conditioning. , 1987, Psychological review.

[30]  R. Rescorla.  A theory of Pavlovian conditioning : Variations in the effectiveness of reinforcement and nonreinforcement , 1972 .