Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli

Bonardi, Charlotte; Mondrag�n, Esther; Brilot, Ben; Jennings, D�mhnall J.

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the effect of the temporal distribution form of a stimulus on its ability to produce an overshadowing effect. The overshadowing stimuli were either of the same duration on every trial, or of a variable duration drawn from an exponential distribution with the same mean duration as that of the fixed stimulus. Both experiments provided evidence that a variable-duration stimulus was less effective than a fixed-duration cue at overshadowing conditioning to a target conditioned stimulus (CS); moreover, this effect was independent of whether the overshadowed CS was fixed or variable. The findings presented here are consistent with the idea that the strength of the association between CS and unconditioned stimulus (US) is, in part, determined by the temporal distribution form of the CS. These results are discussed in terms of time-accumulation and trial-based theories of conditioning and timing.

Citation

Bonardi, C., Mondragón, E., Brilot, B., & Jennings, D. J. (2015). Overshadowing by fixed- and variable-duration stimuli. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(3), https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.960875

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 23, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Oct 1, 2014
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2015
• Deposit Date: Oct 2, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 2, 2017
• Journal: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
• Print ISSN: 1747-0218
• Electronic ISSN: 1747-0226
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 68
• Issue: 3
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.960875
• Keywords: Rats, Timing, Overshadowing, Associative learning, Stimulus distribution form
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/987830
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470218.2014.960875
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology on 1 Oct 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17470218.2014.960875.