Experimental challenges to theories of classical conditioning: application of an attentional model of storage and retrieval

Several studies have recently challenged the accuracy of traditional models of classical conditioning that account for some experimental data in terms of a storage deficit. Among other results, it has been reported that extinction of the blocking or overshadowing stimulus results in the recovery of the response to the blocked or overshadowed stimulus, backward blocking shows spontaneous recovery, extinction of the training context results in the recovery from latent inhibition, interposing a delay between conditioning and testing in latent inhibition increases latent inhibition, and latent inhibition antagonizes overshadowing. An existing neural network model of classical conditioning (N. A. Schmajuk, Y. Lam, & J. A. Gray, 1996), which includes an attentional mechanism controlling both storage and retrieval of associations, is able to quantitatively describe these results.