Kc. Cole et al., THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT IN THE US PREEXPOSURE EFFECT IN CTA - NOVELVERSUS LATENTLY INHIBITED CONTEXTUAL STIMULI, Learning and motivation, 27(4), 1996, pp. 362-374
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.