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. 2006 Feb;135(1):92-102.
doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.135.1.92.

Reasoning rats: forward blocking in Pavlovian animal conditioning is sensitive to constraints of causal inference

Tom Beckers  1 , Ralph R Miller, Jan De Houwer, Kouji Urushihara
Affiliations

Reasoning rats: forward blocking in Pavlovian animal conditioning is sensitive to constraints of causal inference

Tom Beckers et al. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2006 Feb.

Abstract

Forward blocking is one of the best-documented phenomena in Pavlovian animal conditioning. According to contemporary associative learning theories, forward blocking arises directly from the hardwired basic learning rules that govern the acquisition or expression of associations. Contrary to this view, here the authors demonstrate that blocking in rats is flexible and sensitive to constraints of causal inference, such as violation of additivity and ceiling considerations. This suggests that complex cognitive processes akin to causal inferential reasoning are involved in a well-established Pavlovian animal conditioning phenomenon commonly attributed to the operation of basic associative processes.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experiment 1: Mean suppression ratios for experimental and control groups by pretraining condition. Error bars represent standard errors of the means.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Experiment 2: Mean suppression ratios for experimental and control groups by pretraining condition. Error bars represent standard errors of the means.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Experiment 3: Mean suppression ratios for experimental and control groups by outcome intensity condition. Error bars represent standard errors of the means.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Simulated associative strengths for experimental and control animals in a maximal condition and in three instantiations of a submaximal condition. Note that suppression ratios are inversely related to associative strength. See text for details.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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