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). Experiment 4 used a behavioral suppression task where sensor lights (cues) served as signals to suppress firing responses in certain galaxies (contexts). All 4 (Experiments 1–4) addressed whether a potentially negative occasion-setting context transferred its modulatory power to an extinguished (presumably occasion set) target in the test phase of an ABC renewal design. Experiments 2–4 further assessed the possibility that the extinction context acts as a conditioned inhibitor by testing a simple excitor on a context where extinction occurred. Neither selective (occasion-setting) nor nonselective transfer (conditioned inhibition) was demonstrated. Implications for theories of renewal and occasion-setting are discussed.
Three experiments (a, b, c) combined to provide a well-powered examination of the effects of stimulus pre-exposure and conditioning on visual attention using an eye tracker and a space-shooter video game where a colored flashing light predicted an attacking spaceship. In each, group "control" received no pre-exposure to the light, group "same" received pre-exposure in the same context as conditioning, and group "different" received pre-exposure in a different context. Experiments differed in visual details regarding the game (1a vs. 1b and 1c) or minor details in the setup of the eye tracker (1a and 1b vs. 1c). Overall, pre-exposure retarded acquisition of keyboard responding. That effect was enhanced, rather than attenuated, by a context change. Separating participants by sign and goal trackers showed the context change enhanced the pre-exposure effect in goal trackers and reduced it in sign trackers. Visual attention to the light declined during pre-exposure and did not recover with either conditioning or a context switch. Visual attention to the light decreased during conditioning. Visual goal tracking toward where the spaceship would appear was also retarded with pre-exposure. Unlike the keyboard responding, a context change led to more normal goal-tracking acquisition. Results are discussed in terms of theories of attention and the potential effects of demand characteristics on the task.
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