Abstract
The function of the hippocampus in conditioning is portrayed in terms of an extension of Mackintosh’s (1975) attention theory, which describes the evolution of the salience (associability) of each stimulus in the situation, including the context, and its predictive associative relationship to itself and all other stimuli. In terms of the model, the hippocampus is essential for computations that reduce salience when a stimulus is presented in the context of other stimuli that are better predictors of events. The model is applied to the phenomena of latent inhibition and blocking.
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Preparation of this manuscript was facilitated by NSF Grant BNS 77-14871. Theoretical work was initiated in the spring of 1978, when the first author was on the staff of the MRC Unit on Neural Mechanisms of Behaviour, University College London, I. Steele-Russell, director. The authors are especially grateful to N. J. Mackintosh and A. Dickinson for their critiques of an earlier draft.
An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03337464.
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Moore, J.W., Stickney, K.J. Formation of attentional-associative networks in real time: Role of the hippocampus and implications for conditioning. Psychobiology 8, 207–217 (1980). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332852
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332852