Abstract
Conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response was conducted with a serial compound CSA-CSB-US. In the present experiments, prior training of CSB was pitted against the temporal primacy of CSA. Prior training of CSB was able to only weakly block CR acquisition to the added CSA, but CSA caused a pronounced decline in responding to the pretrained CSB. By the end of training, high levels of responding were sustained only in the final portion of the serial compound in which CSA or its traces coincided with CSB. These results provide support for real-time models as exemplified by Sutton and Barto (1981).
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This research was supported by Grant A28315236 from the Australian Research Grants Committee.
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Kehoe, E.J., Schreurs, B.G. & Graham, P. Temporal primacy overrides prior training in serial compound conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response. Animal Learning & Behavior 15, 455–464 (1987). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205056
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205056