Retrospective revaluation of associative retroactive cue interference

Two fear-conditioning experiments with rats assessed whether retrospective revaluation, which has been observed in cue competition (i.e., when compounded cues are followed with an outcome), can also be observed in retroactive cue interference (i.e., when different cues are reinforced in separate phases with the same outcome). Experiment 1 found that after inducing retroactive cue interference (i.e., X-outcome followed by A-outcome), nonreinforced presentations of the interfering cue (A) decreases interference with responding to the target cue (X), just as has been observed in retrospective revaluation experiments in cue competition. Using the opposite manipulation (i.e., adding reinforced presentations of A), Experiment 2 demonstrated that after inducing retroactive cue interference, additional reinforced presentations of the interfering cue (A) increases interference with responding to the target cue (X); alternatively stated, the amount of interference increases with the amount of training with the interfering cue. Thus, both types of retrospective revaluation occur in retroactive cue competition. The results are discussed in terms of the possibility that similar associative mechanisms underlie cue competition and cue interference.     

Spontaneous recovery and ABC renewal from retroactive cue interference

Two conditioned suppression experiments with rats were conducted to determine whether the spontaneous recovery and renewal that are commonly observed in retroactive outcome interference (e.g., extinction) also occur in retroactive cue interference. Experiment 1 showed that a long delay between Phase 2 (the interfering phase) and testing produces a recovery from the cue interference (i.e., the delay enhanced responding to the target cue trained in Phase 1), which is analogous to the spontaneous recovery effect observed in extinction and other retroactive outcome interference procedures. Experiment 2 showed that, when target and interfering cues are trained in separate contexts and testing occurs in a different but familiar context, a recovery from the cue interference is also observed (i.e., the context shift enhanced responding to the target), which is analogous to ABC renewal from extinction. The results are discussed in terms of the possibility that similar associative mechanisms underlie cue and outcome interference.     

Timing in retroactive interference

Retroactive interference is conventionally viewed as attenuated retrieval of a target association due to the training of a second association between training and testing of the target association. In three experiments in which water-deprived rats were used as subjects, we manipulated the durations of the time between cue termination and outcome onset (Experiment 1), the durations of the target and the interfering cues (Experiment 2), and the durations of the outcome used during target and interfering training (Experiment 3). Greater interference was consistently observed between associations bearing a high degree of similarity in their temporal structure, which suggests that interference occurs between complex representations that encode not only the physical attributes of the stimuli, but also their temporal characteristics.     

Attenuation by contextual cues of retroactive interference of a conditional discrimination in rats

We investigated the effect of associating unique contextual cues with an interpolated learning task on retroactive interference in long-term memory. Rats were originally trained in a two-bar operant chamber with an auditory conditional discrimination stimulus. During interpolated learning, which occurred in either the original or a new context, some rats were trained on a probability learning task that did not include the auditory stimuli present during original learning. Subsequent retraining on the original conditional discrimination task in the original context showed that (1) significant retroactive interference occurs in rats, and (2) the presence of unique contextual cues during interpolated learning significantly reduces this interference. These results extend the conditions under which the susceptibility to retroactive interference can be altered by contextual cues.     

Spatial memory in rats: Resistance to retroactive interference

Treatments that interfere with animals’ short-term retention (e.g., in delayed matching-to-sample) were studied using a spatial memory task. Rats performed in an eight-arm radial maze in which choosing each arm without repetition was the optimal behavior. Performances were interrupted between fourth and fifth choices for a delay of 15 sec to 2 min. A variety of events occurring during the delay interval did not disrupt memories for prior choices (as assessed by the accuracy of postdelay choices). The ineffective treatments included variations in visual and auditory environments, removal from the maze, food consumed during the delay, a distinctive odor added to the maze, or combinations of these manipulations. Additionally, performance on another spatial task (a four-arm maze) during the delay between Choices 4 and 5 did not interfere with performance in the eight-arm maze. These findings suggest that rats’ memories for spatial locations are immune to retroactive interference, at least within the range of conditions reported, and that the rat can successfully segregate memories for spatial locations established in different contexts.     

Reactivation of an appetitive discrimination memory following retroactive interference

The present experiment employed an appetitive spatial discrimination response to examine alleviation of forgetting induced by retroactive interference. For separate groups of rats, a footshock that had occurred during acquisition contingent upon a correct response was tested for its effectiveness as a reactivation treatment. The results indicated that the footshock effectively alleviated forgetting, but only for rats experiencing the shock stimulus during original learning. These results suggest that a reactivation treatment may arouse affective or stimulus properties in common with the target memory to elicit retrieval of that memory.     

Persons pursuing multiple objects of interest in multiple contexts

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Whereas much research on interest development focuses on single, predefined, and generic objects of interest (e.g., science) in specific contexts...     

Pavlovian conditioning in multiple contexts: Competition between contexts for comparator status

Water-deprived rats were used to investigate the effects of training a CS in more than one context on conditioned lick suppression. In each experiment, partial reinforcement of the CS was intermingled with unsignaled presentations of the US. In Experiment 1, subjects were either trained in one context alone, trained consecutively in two contexts (such that all training in one context occurred prior to any training in the second context), or trained alternately in two contexts. Following training, the first context, the second context, or neither context was extinguished. Testing of the CS occurred in a third (neutral) context. To the extent that either training context became established as a comparator stimulus for the CS, the comparator hypothesis (Miller & Matzel, 1988) predicts an increase in excitatory responding to the CS following extinction of that context. Subjects trained in a single context exhibited appreciable fear of the CS only when the CS’s training context had been extinguished. Additionally, subjects trained consecutively in the two contexts showed increased fear of the CS following extinction of the second, but not the first training context (i.e., a recency effect). Subjects trained alternately in the two contexts showed no increased fear of the CS as a result of either context alone being extinguished. In Experiment 2, subjects trained alternately in two contexts showed increased fear of the CS only when both training contexts were extinguished, suggesting that both training contexts had become comparator stimuli. These data indicate that multiple training contexts can either compete or act synergistic-ally in modulating responding to a Pavlovian trained CS as a function of the order of training in the different contexts.     

Managing multiple goals in real learning contexts

Understanding students’ multiple goals in real learning contexts is an emerging area of importance for educators and researchers investigating student motivation in classrooms. This qualitative study conducted over an academic year investigates the multiple goals articulated by seven 11-year-old students and explores relationships between goals and changes in goals during the year. Findings show students pursue a range of related academic and social goals over time and that goals can be complementary and dynamic. The significance of multiple goals is emphasised as goals are shown to be complex, dynamic, and pursued simultaneously in real learning contexts.     

Establishing a forget cue in pigeons using the intratrial interference procedure

Pigeons were trained in an intratrial interference preparation in which a horizontal or vertical line was presented for 1 sec immediately following termination of a sample (red or green). Two samples were presented successively on interference trials. Choice of the comparison corresponding to the second (target) sample was designated correct and was reinforced, and choice of the comparison corresponding to the first (interfering) sample was designated incorrect and was not reinforced. Control trials involved the presentation of a single, target sample. A horizontal line was presented upon termination of an interfering sample, and a vertical line was presented upon termination of a target sample. The results of three experiments led to the conclusion that the horizontal line acquired and capacity to reduce postperceptual processing (rehearsal) of information derived from an immediately preceding sample stimulus. These findings include (1) convergence of accuracy on control and interference trials as training progressed, (2) a reduction in accuracy on control and especially on interference trials when the correlation between sample type (interfering or target) and cue type (horizontal or vertical) was reduced to zero, (3) higher accuracy (i.e., less interference) when the horizontal rather than the vertical line followed the interfering sample, and (4) higher accuracy on single-sample trials when the vertical rather than the horizontal line followed sample presentation.     

Conditioned inhibition training of the competing cue after compound conditioning does not reduce cue competition

In each of two experiments, we studied Pavlovian fear conditioning (as assessed by barpress conditioned suppression) in 32 albino rats. Following a two-stage cue-competition procedure (A+ then AX+), we subjected the competing cue (A) to conditioned inhibition training (B+, BA?) before testing the target cue (X). Conditioned inhibition training was designed to weaken the putative A-unconditioned stimulus (US) association, perhaps changing it to an A-no-US association. Performance-deficit theories of cue competition, such as comparator theory and retrieval-interference theory, predict that such procedures should weaken cue competition, causing Conditioned Stimulus X (CS X) to evoke strong responding. The same prediction can be deduced from recent acquisition-focused models (Dickinson &; Burke, 1996; Van Hamme &; Wasserman, 1994). In opposition to this prediction, however, we found in both experiments that conditioned inhibition training had no detectable effect on cue competition even though it successfully abolished conditioned responding to CS A. In Experiment 2, moreover, we found evidence against the hypothesis that the weak response to CS X was due to generalization decrement rather than to cue competition. Results favor early learning-deficit theories of cue competition over performance-deficit theories and over the recent acquisition-focused models.     

Mnemonic-strategy reduction of prose-learning interference

One hundred and sixty college students read three fictitious biographical passages according to either imagery-mnemonic or no-strategy control instructions. In one mnemonic condition, subjects formed separate images involving each biographical name and its associated facts: in another mnemonic condition, the biographical name and its associated facts were integrated within a single composite image. Relative to an interference-control condition, integrated mnemonic subjects recalled more factual information, whereas separate mnemonic subjects did not. In addition, the recall of integrated mnemonic subjects was statistically no different from that of a noninterference control condition, whereas the recall of separate mnemonic subjects was lower. Both theoretical and educational implications of the results are discussed. The first author’s contribution to this work was supported by an Organized Research Grant from the Graduate School of Illinois State University. The second author’s contribution was supported by the National Institute of Education under Grant No. NIE-G-81-0009 to the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and was facilitated by a Romnes Faculty Fellowship from the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.     

价值多元化语境下对大学生价值观培育原则的探讨

价值多元化对原有价值体系的解构以及对新价值的生成产生的巨大作用是今天这个时代的文化特征之一。高校承载着价值文化体系构建的历史重任。大学生是青年价值文化的主要创造者,高校对学生的价值观培育要重视对学生价值选择能力和判断能力等的培养。     

Construction and interference in learning from multiple representation

This paper presents an integrated view of learning from verbal and pictorial representations. Learning from these representations is considered as a task oriented process of constructing multiple mental representations. Construction of these representations includes information selection and information organisation, parsing of symbol structures, mapping of analog structures as well as model construction and model inspection. Based on this theoretical view an experiment was conducted to analyse the effects of different kinds of multiple external representations on the structure of mental models. Sixty university students were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions. The text-only group learned the subject matter with a hypertext, whereas the other two groups learned the subject matter with a hypermedium including this hypertext and different kinds of graphics. The findings indicate that the structure of graphics affects the structure of the mental model. They also indicate that presenting graphics is not always beneficial for the acquisition of knowledge. Whereas task-appropriate graphics may support learning, task-inappropriate graphics may interfere with mental model construction.     

Learning and motivation in multiple contexts: the development of a heuristic framework

This paper presents the development of a heuristic framework that integrates three aspects of context (perspective, content and level) from a number of established theoretical approaches. In this framework, context is viewed from different perspectives (subjective and objective), it comprises different contents (physical, social and formal) and it is conceptualised as being multi-level (micro-, meso-, exo- and macrolevel). The resulting graphical representation has 24 individual elements. Examples of empirical studies are used to illustrate how the different elements in the framework may be operationalised to examine learning and motivation. A number of studies by the authors and other researchers are provided that exemplify different combinations of the perspectives, contents and levels of context. The empirical research used reflects a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires, interviews and graphical representations. Examples are drawn not only from academic learning settings but also from domains such as sport and music. Unifying diverse perspectives and incorporating research from multiple settings can deepen our understanding of learning and motivation. The heuristic framework represents a useful way of organising multiple aspects of context. It enables researchers to locate current studies and to generate further empirical work. Conceptual and methodological issues associated with operationalising the framework are briefly discussed, and the complexity of representing multiple, dynamic contexts is highlighted, with some directions for future research noted.     

Metastasis and retroactive causality in incentive rhetoric

Our contemporary moment is characterized by the pervasiveness of economics in social life, and the extension of “incentives” into new areas represents this movement’s keystone. Originally a fairly narrow term from neoclassical economic theory, politicians, journalists, and cultural ?gures deploy “incentives” to explain all manner of activity: judicial rulings, gendered wage gaps, and even whether soccer players score penalty kicks. To address this, I elucidate the trope of metastasis – the rhetorical mechanism by which social life is “economized.” Metastasis entails a ?gurative displacement, wherein cause shifts from one place to another. More than simply a spread of narrow economic ideas into culture, incentive rhetoric metastasizes. It displaces alternative explanations onto neoclassical market axioms. Since its proponents insist that incentives are causal mechanisms, I introduce Jacques Lacan’s interpretation of Aristotle’s discourse on causality. Lacan rereads Aristotle’s “?nal cause” from a rhetorical perspective, and forwards the retroactive causality of the symbolic order. Incentive rhetoric exempli?es this concept, in which all outcomes are explained as having been caused by a prior, unseen market force. Incentive rhetorics promise a universal code that unlocks the mysteries of human behavior that reduces all context to discrete individual choices, thereby providing a discursive alibi for economic inequality.