Effect of introducing a partial correlation between a critical cue and a previously irrelevant cue.

Abstract

After a period of overlearning on form discrimination, color, which had been random, was made partially relevant. Later, when form was withdrawn, the rats were trained on the black-white discrimination. They "learned to approach the color which had been more frequently positive in the preceding phase faster than they learned to approach the color which had been less frequently positive." The results were interpreted in terms of differential response tendencies to colors, which had been acquired during the earlier phase of the experiment and were seen as favoring a continuity theory of discrimination learning. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1EJ26H. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)