Abstract
Six rabbits were given classical eyelid discrimination training involving “negative patterning,” i.e., the reinforced presentation of two isolable cues, A+ and B+, and the nonreinforced presentation of their compound, AB—. The basis for discriminative responding which was thereby produced was evaluated by additionally reinforcing a third single cue, C+, and testing the responding to the novel compounds AC and BC as well as the responding to AB, A, B, and C. Although there was less responding to the nonreinforced compound than to any of the single cues, there was significantly more responding to the novel compounds, AC and BC. The results are consistent with the view that component response strengths summate to determine compound responding, but that there are functional, configurational components relatively unique to a stimulus compound.
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This research was supported by NSF Grant GB-30299X to Allan R. Wagner.
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Whitlow, J.W., Wagner, A.R. Negative patterning in classical conditioning: Summation of response tendencies to isolable and configurai components. Psychon Sci 27, 299–301 (1972). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03328970
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03328970