Test-retest reliability of response recovery after discrimination reversal learning

In one human predictive learning experiment, we demonstrated that an individual's propensity for response recovery following discrimination reversal learning is stable over time. Participants received four sessions of training with the first three sessions being separated by one week each, while the last session was conducted after a delay of four weeks. During each session, participants initially received discrimination training (E+, F-) in one context, followed by discrimination reversal training (E-, F+) in another context. Sessions each completed with a test, in which the stimuli were presented in the context of initial acquisition. Each test revealed response recovery according to the initially acquired stimulus-outcome contingencies. Furthermore, the strength of response recovery was correlated across sessions that were separated by one week (Sessions 1 and 2), and across sessions separated by four weeks (Sessions 3 and 4). Overall, intra-individual test behavior was stable in 87 % of participants across two sessions, and in 79 % of participants across four sessions. Our results indicate that inter-individual differences in response recovery are a reliable phenomenon, which is a finding that is not accounted by current theories of context-dependent learning.