Presentation and validation of "The Learning Game," a tool to study associative learning in humans

This article presents a 3-D science-fiction-based videogame method to study learning, and two experiments that we used to validate it. In this method, participants are first trained to respond to enemy spaceships (Stimulus 2, or S2) with particular keypresses, followed by transport to a new context (galaxy), where other manipulations can occur. During conditioning, colored flashing lights (Stimulus 1, or S1) can predict S2, and the response attached to S2 from the prior phase comes to be evoked by S1. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that, in accord with previous findings from animals, conditioning in this procedure was positively related to the ratio of the time between trials to the time within a trial. Experiment 2 demonstrated the phenomena of extinction, timing, and renewal. Responding to S1 was slightly lost with a context change, and diminished over trials in the absence of S2. On early extinction trials, responding during S1 declined after the time that S2 normally occurred. Extinguished responding to S1 recovered robustly with a context change.