Contextual control of conflicting associations in the developing rat

Two experiments examined the effects of manipulations of contextual cues on the expression of conflicting associations in 18-, 26-, and 35-day-old rats. Subjects learned to GO RIGHT in a water-filled T-maze, then were trained to reverse this position habit (GO LEFT). When the competing responses were learned in the same visual context, all age groups displayed a recency effect on a subsequent test in extinction; they behaved in accordance with the last-learned GO LEFT habit. If the competing responses were learned in different visual contexts, and testing took place in the context of the first problem, 35-day-old subjects behaved in a manner consistent with the GO RIGHT context (reduced recency). However, similarly trained 18-day-old subjects showed no evidence of a reduced recency effect. Given that 18-day-old rats are sensitive to other context manipulations, the present results suggest that the ability to "disambiguate" conflicting associations by context may depend upon the maturation of a relatively late-developing configural learning system.