Spontaneous recovery from forward and backward blocking

Abstract

This article demonstrates and analyzes spontaneous recovery of stimulus control following both forward and backward blocking in a conditioned suppression preparation with rats. Experiment 1 found, in first-order conditioning, robust forward blocking and an attenuation of it following a retention interval. Experiment 2 showed, in sensory preconditioning, recovery of responding following both forward and backward blocking. Also, the results of this experiment indicated that response recovery to the blocked stimulus cannot be explained by an impaired status of the blocking stimulus after a retention interval. Experiment 3, also in sensory preconditioning, suggested that spontaneous recovery following both forward and backward blocking in Experiment 2 was due to impaired associative activation of the blocking stimulus' representation during testing with the blocked stimulus. Although no contemporary model of associative learning can explain these results, a modification of R. R. Miller and L. D. Matzel's (1988) comparator hypothesis is proposed to do so.