Abstract

LEON, Samuel P.; ABAD, María J. F.  and  ROSAS, Juan M.. Retrieval of simple cue-outcome relationships is context-specific within informative contexts. Escritos de Psicología [online]. 2008, vol.2, n.1, pp.65-73. ISSN 1989-3809.

An experiment in human predictive learning was conducted with the goal of exploring the role of the informative value of the context where the information is learned on context dependency of performance. Three groups of participants received training on a discrimination between two cues (X and Y) while another cue (Z) was always followed by the outcome in context A. Discrimination was reversed in context B for group I (informative). Group NI1 received the same X-Y discrimination, while Group NI2 did not receive training with X and Y in context B. Subsequent extinction of Z proceeded faster in context B than in context A in group I, while no differences across contexts were found in groups NI1 and NI2. These results suggest that participants code context-independent information as context dependent when contexts are relevant for solving the task.

Keywords : Context-switch effects; Extinction; Attention; Human predictive learning; Renewal.

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