Holmes Nathan M, Griffiths Oren, Westbrook R Frederick
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia.
Learn Behav. 2014 Sep;42(3):289-303. doi: 10.3758/s13420-014-0146-x.
Studies in laboratory animals have shown that the extinction of a conditioned stimulus, A, is regulated by the associative history of a second stimulus, X, when the two are extinguished in simultaneous compound: An inhibitory X protects A from extinction (Rescorla Learning & Behavior, 31, 124-132, 2003), whereas an excitatory X facilitates, and under some circumstances deepens, the extinction of A (Rescorla Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 26, 251-260, 2000, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 32, 135-144, 2006). In the present study, we used the allergist task to examine whether the extinction of causal judgments in people is similarly regulated by the causal status of co-present stimuli. Experiment 1 showed that a cue trained as a conditioned inhibitor protected a target cue from extinction: The target extinguished in compound with the inhibitor was rated as being more causal of the outcome than was a target extinguished in compound with a control cue lacking inhibitory properties. In contrast, the remaining experiments showed that the extinction of a target cue was regulated by the presence, but not the causal status, of a partner cue: Target cues extinguished in compound were protected from extinction, and no evidence showed that an already extinguished partner conferred more protection (Exp. 2), or that an excitatory partner conferred any less protection (Exps. 2 and 3), or that an excitatory partner deepened the extinction of its already extinguished target. These findings are inconsistent with elemental models that rely on a common error term to explain associative changes in extinction. They are largely, but not completely, consistent with the configural model proposed by Pearce (Psychological Review, 94, 61-73, 1987), which predicts an ordering of levels of protection that was not observed.
对实验动物的研究表明，当条件刺激A与第二个刺激X同时在复合刺激中消退时，条件刺激A的消退受第二个刺激X的联想历史调节：抑制性X可保护A不消退（《雷斯克拉学习与行为》，第31卷，第124 - 132页，2003年），而兴奋性X则促进A的消退，并且在某些情况下会加深A的消退（《雷斯克拉实验心理学杂志：动物行为过程》，第26卷，第251 - 260页，2000年；《实验心理学杂志：动物行为过程》，第32卷，第135 - 144页，2006年）。在本研究中，我们使用过敏症专家任务来检验人们因果判断的消退是否同样受同时出现的刺激的因果状态调节。实验1表明，被训练为条件抑制物的线索可保护目标线索不消退：与抑制物复合消退的目标被评定为比与缺乏抑制特性的控制线索复合消退的目标对结果更具因果性。相比之下，其余实验表明，目标线索的消退受伙伴线索的存在而非因果状态调节：复合消退的目标线索受到保护不消退，并且没有证据表明已经消退的伙伴提供了更多保护（实验2），或者兴奋性伙伴提供的保护更少（实验2和3），或者兴奋性伙伴加深了其已消退目标的消退。这些发现与依赖共同误差项来解释消退中联想变化的元素模型不一致。它们在很大程度上，但并非完全与皮尔斯提出的构型模型（《心理学评论》，第94卷，第61 - 73页，1987年）一致，该模型预测的保护水平顺序未被观察到。
