Concurrent evidence of extinction making acquisition context specific and ABA and ABC renewal effects in human predictive learning.

Two experiments evaluated whether the experience of extinction makes acquisition context specific (EMACS) while the extinction learning itself also becomes context dependent under ABA and ABC renewal designs in a human predictive learning situation. Two groups of participants received X-Outcome pairings in context A followed by P-Outcome pairings in context B. For participants in group E, cue X was then extinguished in context B while cue P was trained.

Extinction contexts fail to transfer control: Implications for conditioned inhibition and occasion-setting accounts of renewal.

The renewal effect is often explained as a side effect of the extinction context acting as a negative occasion setter. Four experiments tested whether extinction contexts show the selective-transfer property of occasion setters. Experiments 1-3 used a predictive judgment task where participants rated the probability of certain foods (cues) producing gastric malaise (outcomes) in different restaurants (contexts).

Discrimination reversal facilitates subsequent acquisition of temporal discriminations in rats' appetitive conditioning.

Three experiments with rats assessed the effects of introducing predictive ambiguity by reversing a Pavlovianly trained discrimination on subsequent context and temporal conditioning. The experience of discrimination reversal did not facilitate context conditioning when the food was presented on a variable time schedule (Experiment 1a). However, in Experiment 1b, discrimination reversal enhanced subsequent learning of a fixed temporal interval associated with unsignaled food presentation in comparison with consistent training.

The effects of extinction-aroused attention on context conditioning.

Two experiments assessed the effects of extinguishing a conditioned cue on subsequent context conditioning. Each experiment used a different video-game method where sensors predicted attacking spaceships and participants responded to the sensor in a way that prepared them for the upcoming attack. In Experiment 1 extinction of a cue which signaled a spaceship-attack outcome facilitated subsequent learning when the attack occurred unsignaled.

Contextual control of conditioning is not affected by extinction in a behavioral task with humans.

The Attentional Theory of Context Processing (ATCP) states that extinction will arouse attention to contexts resulting in learning becoming contextually controlled. Participants learned to suppress responding to colored sensors in a video-game task where contexts were provided by different gameplay backgrounds. Four experiments assessed the contextual control of simple excitatory learning acquired to a test stimulus (T) after (Exp.

Extinction arouses attention to the context in a behavioral suppression method with humans.

One experiment assessed predictions from the attentional theory of context processing (ATCP, J. M. Rosas, J.

Prenatal choline availability alters the context sensitivity of Pavlovian conditioning in adult rats.

The effects of prenatal choline availability on Pavlovian conditioning were assessed in adult male rats (3-4 mo). Neither supplementation nor deprivation of prenatal choline affected the acquisition and extinction of simple Pavlovian conditioned excitation, or the acquisition and retardation of conditioned inhibition. However, prenatal choline availability significantly altered the contextual control of these learned behaviors.

Prenatal choline supplementation increases sensitivity to contextual processing of temporal information.

The effects of prenatal choline availability on contextual processing in a 30-s peak-interval (PI) procedure with gaps (1, 5, 10, and 15 s) were assessed in adult male rats. Neither supplementation nor deprivation of prenatal choline affected baseline timing performance in the PI procedure. However, prenatal choline availability significantly altered the contextual processing of gaps inserted into the to-be-timed signal (light on).

Prenatal choline deficiency decreases the cross-sectional area of cholinergic neurons in the medial septal nucleus.

Levels of dietary choline in utero influence postnatal cognitive performance. To better understand this phenomenon, forebrain cholinergic neurons were studied in the 8-9 month old offspring of dams fed a control or choline-deficient diet from EDs 11-17. Serial sections were immunostained with antibodies against p75, a cholinergic marker.