THE EFFECT OF CONTEXT CHANGE UPON LONG-TERM-MEMORY OF CS DURATION

An experiment with rats investigated forgetting of inhibition of delay in the conditioned suppression paradigm. The combined effects of cont extual change and retention interval were tested. After a reliable tem poral discrimination was reached, half of the rats received a test in the training context after a retention interval of 3 or 20 days. The o ther half received it in a different but equally familiar context at e ither retention interval. The longest retention interval flattened the temporal discrimination gradient and increased suppression to the CS. A similar but weaker pattern was found with the change of context; th is effect was independent of the retention interval. The implications for retrieval and interference theory [Bouton, M.E., 1993. Psychol. Bu ll., 114: 80-99] and hypotheses concerning the forgetting of specific features of stimuli over time [Riccio, D.C., Richardson, R. and Ebner, D.L., 1984. Psychol. Bull., 96: 152-165] are discussed. (C) 1997 Else vier Science B.V.