Abstract
Rats were given tone-footshock pairings with a 0-, 10-, or 30-sec trace interval between tone offset and shock onset. Half the rats within each trace interval were tested for their conditioned fear of the tone through a lick suppression procedure; the remaining rats were evaluated for their fear of the background or contextual cues through their avoidance of the compartment in which conditioning had occurred. Less conditioning was observed to the tone with increasing trace intervals. However, conditioned fear of the context increased with increases in the trace duration. The ability of the more predictive stimulus, the tone, to overshadow the contextual cues was determined by the tone’s temporal contiguity with the footshock. The need to incorporate temporal parameters within current theories of conditioning is discussed.
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Kaplan, P., & Hearst, E.Trace conditioning, contiguity, and context. Paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, St. Louis, Missouri, November 1980.
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This research was supported by a Weldon Springs Faculty Development grant from the University of Missouri.
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Marlin, N.A. Contextual associations in trace conditioning. Animal Learning & Behavior 9, 519–523 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209784
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209784