Stimulus generalization: some predictions from a model of Pavlovian conditioning.

Three experiments examined predictions generated by incorporating a common-elements account of stimulus generalization within the Rescorla-Wagner model of conditioning. All experiments employed rats in a conditioned suppression situation. Experiments 1 and 2 found that conditioning of a similar stimulus augmented the excitation controlled by a near-asymptotic target stimulus more than did further conditioning of the target itself. Prior discrimination training between the target and the similar stimulus enlarged this effect, compared with prior discrimination between the target and another dissimilar stimulus. Nonreinforced exposure of the similar stimulus prior to its reinforcement also increased the effect. Experiment 3 examined a related prediction for inhibition. After discrimination training, extinction of the previously reinforced stimulus revealed more inhibition to the previously nonreinforced stimulus when those two stimuli were more similar. These outcomes are consistent with deductions from the present model and encourage further testing of its expansion to the case of stimulus generalization.