Cognitive conditioning: Imagined stimulus contiguity and the third interval conditional GSR

The effect of repeatedly imagining paired or unpaired CSs and USs on the frequency of post-CS responses during real extinction was studied. Four groups of 10 Ss first received a model tone and shock. For two of the groups the stimuli were paired (delayed conditioning paradigm). For the others the stimuli were arranged in a long trace paradigm. The Ss then received a series of commands requiring them to imagine receiving paired CSs and USs, or to imagine the events singly. Then 10 real tone extinction trials were given. The groups which received delayed conditioning model stimuli were more responsive than trace groups, and groups which had imagined paired stimuli were more responsive than their unpaired controls. Cognitively oriented explanations of these findings were discussed.     

The role of discrimination training in the generalization of punishment

Pigeons were trained to respond equally to various orientations of three parallel lines projected on a response key. One group was then punished for responding to the vertical lines, but not punished in a line-absent condition. Two other groups were also punished but had no opportunity to make such a discrimination. Orderly generalization gradients were obtained from the discrimination group during recovery from punishment, with least responding to the vertical lines and higher rates to other orientations. Gradients obtained from the non-discrimination groups were flat. A discrimination of punishment contingencies appears to be necessary for a stimulus correlated with punishment to acquire control over its reductive effects.     

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