Abstract
Latent inhibition, which refers to attenuated responding to a conditioned stimulus (CS) after CS-unconditioned stimulus (CS-US) pairings as a result of CS-alone presentations prior to the pairings, is often attenuated if preexposure and conditioning occur in different contexts (i.e., it is context specific). Here we report two conditioned lick suppression experiments, using rat subjects, that examined whether manipulations known to attenuate the context specificity of extinction could also eliminate the context specificity of latent inhibition. Context specificity of latent inhibition was eliminated when the CS was preexposed in multiple contexts (Experiment 1) and when the CS was massively preexposed in the training context alone (Experiment 2). These results and their practical implications are discussed in the framework of contemporary theories of latent inhibition.
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Support for this research was provided by NIMH Grant 33881. We thank Jim Esposito for his technical assistance, Jeff Amundson, Francisco Arcediano, Martha Escobar, Oskar Pineño, Steven Stout, and Kouji Urushihara for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and Kenia Castellanos for her assistance in the collection of the data.
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Wheeler, D.S., Chang, R.C. & Miller, R.R. Massive preexposure and preexposure in multiple contexts attenuate the context specificity of latent inhibition. Animal Learning & Behavior 31, 378–386 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195998
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195998