PRETEST CUEING CAN ALLEVIATE THE FORGETTING OF CONTEXTUAL STIMULUS ATTRIBUTES

In two experiments, the reversibility of forgetting of stimulus attrib utes was investigated in rats. Experiment 1 found that when the subjec ts had forgotten details of stimulus attributes 1 week after training in a Pavlovian differential fear-conditioning task, a cuing treatment, i.e., exposure to the training context, led to a strong context shift effect (short test latency) again. Experiment 2 indicated that the du ration of the reactivated memory for the training context was relative ly short. When the subjects were tested to the generalized contextual stimulus (shifted room) within 30 min after cuing treatment, they read ily discriminated the stimulus change, as seen in a strong context shi ft effect. However, when the cuing-test interval was lengthened to mor e than 60 min, the context shift effect was no longer observed, indica ting a loss of the reminder effect. These results suggest that forgett ing of stimulus attributes may be due to a retrieval deficit, which ca n be alleviated by a pretest cuing treatment, and that the effectivene ss of the cuing treatment on forgetting of stimulus attributes is time -dependent. Thus, forgetting of stimulus attributes may share a common mechanism with the forgetting of a target response. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.