Biomedical subjects

F Arcediano

Publications and source records attributed to F Arcediano.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Conditions favoring retroactive interference between antecedent events (cue competition) and between subsequent events (outcome competition).

Retrieval of a target association (A-B) is often impaired if training of a similar association is interpolated between target training and testing; this is known as retroactive interference. Two experiments, in which rats were used as subjects in a sensory preconditioning preparation, studied the associative nature of retroactive interference between antecedent events (i.e., A and C in the A-B, C-B paradigm) and between subsequent events (i.e., B and C in the A-B, A-C paradigm). With the present preparation, retroactive interference was equally strong between antecedent events and between subsequent events. Moreover, interference occurred only if (1) an association was trained in the interpolated phase and (2) the target and interpolated associations had a common element in a common temporal location.

Animals↗

PubMed1996

Test question modulates cue competition between causes and between effects.

The research reported in this article replicated the well-established phenomenon of competition between causes (C) as well as the more controversial presence and absence of competition between effects (E). The test question was identified as a crucial factor leading to each outcome. Competition between causes was obtained when the test question asked about the probability of E given C, p(E/C), implicitly compared with the probability of E given some alternative cause, p(E/C'). competition between effects was obtained when the test question asked about p(C/E) implicitly compared with p(C/E'). Under these conditions, effects competed for diagnostic value just as causes competed for predictive value. Additionally, some conditions in which neither causes nor effects competed were identified. These results suggest a bidirectional and noncompetitive learning process, the contents of which can be used in different ways (competitively or noncompetitively and forward or backward) as a function of test demands.

Causality↗

PubMed1996

A behavioural preparation for the study of human Pavlovian conditioning.

Conditioned suppression is a useful technique for assessing whether subjects have learned a CS-US association, but it is difficult to use in humans because of the need for an aversive US. The purpose of this research was to develop a non-aversive procedure that would produce suppression. Subjects learned to press the space bar of a computer as part of a video game, but they had to stop pressing whenever a visual US appeared, or they would lose points. In Experiment 1, we used an A+/B- discrimination design: The US always followed Stimulus A and never followed Stimulus B. Although no information about the existence of CSs was given to the subjects, suppression ratio results showed a discrimination learning curve-that is, subjects learned to suppress responding in anticipation of the US when Stimulus A was present but not during the presentations of Stimulus B. Experiment 2 explored the potential of this preparation by using two different instruction sets and assessing post-experimental judgements of CS A and CS B in addition to suppression ratios. The results of these experiments suggest that conditioned suppression can be reliably and conveniently used in the human laboratory, providing a bridge between experiments on animal conditioning and experiments on human judgements of causality.

Animals↗