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Rapid contextual conditioning in autoshaping

P D Balsam, A L Schwartz

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes

|October 1, 1981

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Contextual conditioning in autoshaping is very rapid, occurring even with few pretraining trials. This supports theories where associative values of conditioned stimuli and background stimuli influence learning.

Area of Science:

Behavioral psychology
Animal learning

Background:

Autoshaping is a procedure where an animal learns to associate a conditioned stimulus (CS) with an unconditioned stimulus (US).
Contextual conditioning involves learning about the environment or background in which conditioning occurs.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the speed of contextual conditioning in autoshaping using ring doves.
To determine how the number of pretraining trials affects autoshaping acquisition and response maintenance.

Main Methods:

Ring doves were magazine trained in one context before autoshaping in a second context with manipulated background values.
Experiment 1 varied the number of US-only pretraining trials (4-256).
Experiment 2 compared pretraining trials (2 vs. 20) in same vs. different contexts.

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Main Results:

Acquisition speed and response maintenance were positively related to the number of pretraining trials.
Maximal retardation of the key-peck response occurred within 64 pretraining trials.
Contextual conditioning was rapid, especially when pretraining and testing occurred in the same context.

Conclusions:

Contextual conditioning in autoshaping is highly efficient and occurs quickly.
Findings support theoretical models of Pavlovian conditioning that emphasize the role of both CS and background stimulus associative values.