Signaling intertrial shocks attenuates their negative effect on conditioned suppression

Abstract

Three groups of rats were given Pavlovian fear conditioning in which footshocks occurred at a rate of.4 per 2 min in the presence of a light. For two of those groups, the light/shock contingency was degraded by the delivery of shocks at a rate of.2 per minute in the absence ofthe light. For one group, those additional shocks were signaled by a sequence of auditory stimuli; for the other group, they were unsignaled. A subsequent test of the light’s ability to suppress ongoing leverpressing found that shocks delivered in the absence of the light interfered with conditioning of the light. But that interference was reduced markedly when those shocks were signaled. The results are consistent with a view in which Pavlovian contingencies aremediated by background conditioning adversely affecting learning about signals of the reinforcer. © 1984, The psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.