When time matters: generalisation gradients in delay and trace conditioning procedures
Publication Date
July 15, 2025
Creators
Description
Previous studies have documented that overshadowing weakens when a CS-US trace is inserted, and we have interpreted such effect in terms of differential generalization in trace versus delay procedures, but direct evidence in humans is lacking. Two online experiments investigated whether the weakening of cue-outcome temporal contiguity impacts generalisation gradients. Participants experienced strong temporal contiguity (the offset of a cue coincides with the onset an outcome) or weak temporal contiguity (there is a temporal gap between the offset of a cue and the onset of an outcome) in a continuous predictive learning task. Initial training involved a double negative discrimination, in which there was one reinforced cue (aqua-colour rectangle) and two non-reinforced cues (one greener and one bluer than the reinforced cue), and participants had to make a response whenever they predicted the outcome. After training, in the generalization test phase, outcome expectancy in presence of several stimuli along the full green-blue dimension was tested. Outcome expectancy was assessed with discrete ratings in Experiment 1 (n=252) and a behavioural dependent measure (button presses, similar to the training phase) in Experiment 2 (n=250). Regardless the type of measure, when participants experienced weak cue-outcome temporal contiguity showed a broader generalisation response, although differences were more prominent in the green side of the color dimension. Furthermore, no significant differences emerged between two groups experiencing strong temporal contiguity but differing in cue duration (controlling stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA), suggesting that cue-outcome temporal contiguity plays a more critical role than cue duration in shaping generalization. Overall, this result advances our understanding of the role of temporal contiguity at a basic level, while opening the possibility to study it as a critical factor in more applied settings.
Subjects (LCSH)
Subjects
Subjects (JACS)
Subjects (LC)
Divisions
University of Nottingham, UK Campus::Faculty of Science::School of Psychology
Data type
Behavioural results of predictive learning experiments. During training, participants need to predict whether an outcome will occur on the basis of signals by clicking on a screen button. During test, participants give a predictive rating for each signal (or use the button click as in training, depending on the experiment), indicating whether the outcome will occur in the presence of the signal. Tests of other signals were also conducted to assess generalization.
Grant Number
ES/R011494/2
Data collection method
Online data collection. Participants were recruited through platforms (Prolific or Amazon Mechanical Turk).
Resource languages
English
Publisher
The University of Nottingham
Date Issued
July 15, 2025
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Alcala_etal_2025_OnlineDataSet.xlsx
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208.13 KB
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