Orienting response reinstatement and dishabituation: effects of substituting, adding, and deleting components of nonsignificant stimuli.

The prediction that orienting response (OR) reinstatement is negatively related to the measure of common features, shared by the stimulus input and representations of preceding events, and positively related to the measure of their distinctive features, was examined. A nonsignificant test stimulus (TS) was presented after nine repetitions of a standard stimulus (SS), followed by two additional repetitions of SS. TS was created by either substituting 0, 1, or 2 components of SS (Experiment 1), or by either adding or deleting 0, 1, or 2 components of SS (Experiment 2). Skin conductance changes to TS (OR reinstatement) and the subsequent SS (dishabituation) were used as dependent measures. The results of Experiment 1 supported the prediction that substituting components of neutral stimuli affects OR reinstatement, with a larger effect for between-categories than within-categories substitution. Experiment 2 demonstrated that adding and deleting components similarly affects OR reinstatement.