Jc. Denniston et al., THE ROLE OF TEMPORAL RELATIONSHIPS IN THE TRANSFER OF CONDITIONED INHIBITION, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes, 24(2), 1998, pp. 200-214
Two experiments with rats investigated the temporal relationships unde
r which conditioned inhibition will transfer to an independently condi
tioned exciter (CS) in a summation test. Experiment 1 trained 2 simult
aneous inhibitors with either a trace or delay excitatory CS. Transfer
of inhibitory behavioral control depended on the temporal relationshi
p of the transfer CS to the unconditioned stimulus (US). Experiment 2
extended these findings by training 2 inhibitors (1 simultaneous and 1
serial) with a single delay excitatory CS. Again, testing with trace
and delay transfer CSs found that transfer of inhibitor control depend
ed on the temporal relationship of the transfer CS to the US. In both
studies, maximal inhibition was observed when the inhibitor signaled U
S omission at the same time as the transfer exciter signaled US presen
tation. The results are discussed in terms of the temporal coding hypo
thesis.