Comparing the context specificity of extinction and latent inhibition

Abstract

Exposure to a cue alone either before (i.e., latent inhibition treatment) or after (i.e., extinction) the cue is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US) results in attenuated conditioned responding to the cue. Here we report two experiments in which potential parallels between the context specificity of the effects of extinction and latent inhibition treatments were directly compared in a lick suppression preparation with rats. The reversed ordering of conditioning and nonreinforcement in extinction and latent inhibition designs allowed us to examine the effect of training order on the context specificity of what is learned given phasic reinforcement and nonreinforcement of a target cue. Experiment 1 found that when CS conditioning and CS nonreinforcement were administered in the same context, both extinction and latent inhibition treatments had reduced impact on test performance relative to excitatory conditioning when testing occurred outside the treatment context. Similarly, Experiment 2 found that when conditioning was administered in one context and nonreinforcement was administered in a second context, the effects of both extinction and latent inhibition treatments were attenuated when testing occurred in a neutral context relative to the context in which the CS was nonreinforced. The observed context specificity of extinction and latent inhibition treatments have both been previously reported, but not in a single experiment under otherwise identical conditions. The results of the two experiments convergently suggest that memory of nonreinforcement becomes context dependent after a cue is both reinforced and nonreinforced independent of the order of training.

Characteristics of retrograde amnesia for CS preexposure

“…These results indicate that memories for CS preexposure share a temporal gradient, as seen in memories for original acquisition and extinction. Moreover, the results suggest that CS preexposure is a form of new learning similar to extinction, producing an independent memory that may compete with the association as suggested by others (Miller et al, 2015;Schauz & Koch, 2000). These results of a temporal gradient for amnesia of CS preexposure can be explained using a retrieval-oriented hypothesis of retrograde amnesia described by a modified state dependent retention effect (Gisquet-Verrier et al, 2015;Hinderliter et al, 1975;Riccio et al, 2006).…”

“…These characteristics of retrograde amnesia are similar to those seen in original acquisition memories and extinction memories. These results further suggest that, similar to extinction learning, CS preexposure forms a new competing association that is susceptible to disruption (Miller et al, 2015;Schauz & Koch, 2000).…”

“…CS preexposure has also been shown to be context specific using a variety of learning paradigms (Bouton & Bolles, 1979;Channell & Hall, 1983;Lovibond, Preston, & Mackintosh, 1984;Maes, 2002;Miller, Laborda, Polack, & Miguez, 2015;Westbrook, Jones, Bailey, & Harris, 2000). In addition, the context specificity of CS preexposure has been suggested to result from retrieval failure of the non-reinforced cue exposure (see Bouton, 1993), and that a new competing association may be formed during CS preexposure similar to that of extinction (see Miller et al, 2015;Schauz & Koch, 2000). Moreover, similar to extinction, CS preexposure has been shown to be vulnerable to disruption by the NMDA receptor antagonists AP-5 (Schauz & Koch, 2000) and MK-801 (Traverso, Ruiz, & De la Casa, 2003).…”

Stepping back from ‘persistence and relapse’ to see the forest: Associative interference

“…Thus, we must look at proactive outcome interference between nonreinforcement in phase 1 (i.e., latent inhibition treatment) and reinforcement in phase 2 rather than the retroactive outcome interference that constitutes an extinction paradigm. Miller, Laborda, Polack, and Miguez (2015) observed similar degrees of context dependence of nonreinforcement treatment independent of whether that nonreinforcement was proactive (latent inhibition) or retroactive (extinction) interference. This suggests that nonreinforcement treatment (i.e., X-) is prone to be context dependent whether or not it is second learned.…”

Changes in Cue Configuration Reduce the Impact of Interfering Information in a Predictive Learning Task

“…Not surprisingly, when presented with that cue, participants initially respond according to o1 but then they adapt their responses to o2 . Some of the most popular effects explored by learning and memory psychologists, like extinction (Pavlov, 1927; Miller et al, 2015), latent inhibition (Lubow, 1973; De la Casa and Lubow, 1995; Rodríguez et al, 2014; Miguez et al, 2015), counterconditioning (Bouton and Peck, 1992; Raes and De Raedt, 2012), or retrieval-induced forgetting (Anderson et al, 1994; Vadillo et al, 2013, 2016) belong to this family of interference phenomena.…”