Apparatus Exposure Produces Profound Declines in Conditioned Nictitating-Membrane Responses to Discrete Conditioned Stimuli by the Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). |
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Authors: | Kehoe, E. James Weidemann, Gabrielle Dartnall, Stephanie |
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Abstract: | The present experiments demonstrated that in the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) nictitacing-membrane (NM) preparation, exposure to the experimental apparatus produces profound declines in conditioned responding to a discrete conditioned stimulus (CS; Experiments 1, 2A, and 3). Moreover, this decremental effect is at most attenuated in only a minor way when the unconditioned stimulus (US) is presented during exposure to the apparatus (Experiment 2B). Controls for retention loss (Experiments 1 and 3) and for handling and placement in a different context (Experiment 3) did not produce significant declines in responding. These findings challenge theories of extinction that rely primarily on context-US associations but are more consistent with theories that assume context-CS-US associations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
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Keywords: | extinction classical conditioning nictitacing-membrane apparatus exposure rabbits |
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