Contextual control of conditioning is not affected by extinction in a behavioral task with humans
- Autoría:
- Nelson, J. B., & Lamoureux, J. A.
- Año:
- 2015
- Revista:
- Learning & Behavior
- Volumen:
- 43(2)
- Página de inicio - Página de fin:
- 163 - 178
- DOI:
- 10.3758/s13420-015-0170-5
- Descripción:
-
The Attentional Theory of Context Processing (ATCP) states that extinction will arouse attention to contexts resulting in learning becoming contextually controlled. Participants learned to suppress responding to colored sensors in a video-game task where contexts were provided by different gameplay backgrounds. Four experiments assessed the contextual control of simple excitatory learning acquired to a test stimulus (T) after (Exp. 1) or during (Exp. 2–4) extinction of another stimulus (X). Experiment 1 produced no evidence of contextual control of T, though renewal to X was present both at the time T was trained and tested. In Experiment 2 no contextual control of T was evident when X underwent extensive conditioning and extinction. In Experiment 3 no contextual control of T was evident after extensive conditioning and extinction of X, and renewal to X was present. In Experiment 4 contextual control was evident to T, but it neither depended upon nor was enhanced by extinction of X. The results presented here appear to limit the generality of ATCP.