THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT IN THE US PREEXPOSURE EFFECT IN CTA - NOVELVERSUS LATENTLY INHIBITED CONTEXTUAL STIMULI

Three experiments were conducted to examine the role of novel contextu al stimuli in producing the inconditioned stimuli (US) preexposure eff ect. Experiment 1 demonstrated that novel contextual stimuli produce a significantly stronger US preexposure effect than familiar or ''laten tly inhibited'' contextual stimuli. Moreover, subjects preexposed in t he presence of latently inhibited contextual cues failed to show a sig nificant US preexposure effect. Experiments 2 and 3 attempted to provi de evidence that the addition of a single novel stimulus to the latent ly inhibited context would results in a significantly stronger US pree xposure effect than when no such novel cue was present. Experiment 3 w as able to demonstrated this effect. Results are consistent with the R eseorla-Wagner (1972) model of conditioning. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.