León Samuel P, Abad María J F, Rosas Juan M
University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain.
Exp Psychol. 2010;57(1):46-53. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000006.
Contexts are sometimes informative about relationships that occur within them and sometimes not. The goal of this experiment was to determine the effect of that information value on the context-specificity of learning. Participants performed an instrumental task within a computer game in which they defended different Andalucía beaches (contexts) by destroying several attackers (planes or tanks) by clicking on them (responses) with the mouse. A colored sensor (discriminative stimulus) indicated to participants which attacker could be destroyed in a given trial - that is, which of the instrumental responses would be reinforced. Three groups of participants received training on a discrimination between two discriminative stimuli (X and Y) in Context A. The discrimination was reversed in Context B for Group I (informative). Group NI1 received the same X-Y discrimination in Context B. Group NI2 did not receive training with X and Y in Context B. Additionally, participants received training with cue Z in Context A, which consistently signaled the same outcome. A single test trial with Z revealed a lower response rate in Context B than in Context A in Group I, while no differences across contexts were found in Groups NI1 and NI2. Results suggest that when the context is informative about relationships within the experimental setting, even those relationships for which the context is not informative become context-dependent.
情境有时能提供有关其中所发生关系的信息，有时则不能。本实验的目的是确定该信息价值对学习情境特异性的影响。参与者在一款电脑游戏中执行一项工具性任务，在游戏中他们通过用鼠标点击（反应）来摧毁几个攻击者（飞机或坦克），从而保卫不同的安达卢西亚海滩（情境）。一个彩色传感器（辨别性刺激）向参与者表明在给定试验中哪个攻击者可以被摧毁——也就是说，哪个工具性反应会得到强化。三组参与者在情境A中接受了关于两种辨别性刺激（X和Y）之间辨别的训练。对于第一组（信息性组），在情境B中辨别被反转。非信息性组1（NI1）在情境B中接受相同的X - Y辨别训练。非信息性组2（NI2）在情境B中未接受X和Y的训练。此外，参与者在情境A中接受了线索Z的训练，线索Z始终预示着相同的结果。对线索Z进行的单次测试试验显示，第一组在情境B中的反应率低于情境A，而非信息性组1和非信息性组2在不同情境之间未发现差异。结果表明，当情境能提供有关实验环境中关系的信息时，即使是那些情境未提供信息的关系也会变得依赖于情境。
