Associative change in the representations acquired during conditional discriminations: further analysis of the nature of conditional learning

Three experiments with rats investigated how the associative strengths of the representations that underlie conditional learning change when they are conditioned in compound. The results of each experiment suggest that the representation whose associative strength is most discrepant from the asymptote supported by the outcome of the trial undergoes the greatest change in associative strength. These results parallel those from simple Pavlovian conditioning (e.g., R. A. Rescorla, 2000). are inconsistent with unique-cue and configural accounts of conditional learning, and support a connectionist analysis of learning in which a "winner-takes-all" rule applies to the hidden units that can be activated and acquire associative strength at a given point in time.