The objective of the project is to extend both the empirical findings and theories related to contextual control of learned information. When stimuli are associated with multiple outcomes, often those later experiences appear to be lost with a change in context, resulting in a recovery of behavior associated with the earlier learning experience. The proposed research will further delineate the conditions in which this contextual control occurs. The project will assess the extent to which distinguishing between first- and second-learned information can account for the degree to which contextual change affects the retrieval of learning. The results will have implications for multiple areas within the field of Psychology including learning and memory, cognitive science and neural network modeling, behavioral neuroscience, and importantly clinical psychology. Current theories of learning, and neural network models of learning processes, do not accurately address all aspects of contextual control: Further delineation of the conditions in which it occurs is needed. Also, understanding the conditions in which some learning is controlled by context has implications for the understanding of relapse in clinical applications. Behavioral neuroscience has provided evidence that different areas of the brain are involved when a stimulus is associated with multiple outcomes. Differential susceptibility to contextual control may be one behavioral outcome of this distinction. The general designs will investigate the effects of contextual change on performance elicited by conditioned stimuli (CSs) that have been associated with multiple outcomes through classical conditioning in both rat subjects and human participants. In rats, CSs such as tones and lights will be associated with multiple outcomes such as food, or its absence across multiple phases of the experiment. In humans different CSs will be provided through hypothetical """"""""sensors"""""""" in a video-game preparation. Outcomes will be provided by the subject being attacked by an enemy spacecraft in the video game. The contextual control of the resultant learning will be assessed by testing the CSs in a different context (experimental chambers in the rat studies, and computer screen backgrounds in the human studies) than in which it was acquired. Experiments will test the prediction that contextual change will cause a greater failure to retrieve the second of two learned associations. ? ?
| Nelson, James Byron; Gregory, Pamela; Sanjuan, Maria del Carmen (2012) The extinction context enables extinction performance after a change in context. Behav Processes 90:372-7 |
| Nelson, James Byron; Callejas-Aguilera, Jose Enrique (2007) The role of interference produced by conflicting associations in contextual control. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 33:314-26 |
| Byron Nelson, James; del Carmen Sanjuan, Maria (2006) A context-specific latent inhibition effect in a human conditioned suppression task. Q J Exp Psychol (Colchester) 59:1003-20 |
