The study on interaction between habituation and latent inhibition effect

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Using rats as the subjects, this project aimed to find the possible interactions between latent inhibition and habituation effects, both of which are produced by stimulus preexposure.Using the conditioned suppression paradigm, the first study examined the effects of of a second (distractor) stimulus added either during preexposure or during conditioning, on the degree of latent inhibition to the target. Addition of the distractor during conditioning attenuated latent inhibition to the target, while addition of it during preexposure did not. These results suggest that in the conditioned suppression with the stimuli from different modalities, the added distractor functions to disrupt the habituation process of the preexposed stimulus.On the other hand, the second study which aimed to reexamine the same effect by using the conditioned flavor-aversion paradigm showed that it was rather the distractor added during preexposure which attenuated latent inhibition to the target. In this paradigm, addition of the distractor during conditioning had no effect. It was suggested that in this paradigm addition of the distractor causes the generalization decrement.The third study explored the effects of duration and amount of the presentation of the flavor on both the habituation and latent inhibition effects. It was found that neither the duration nor the amount of flavor solution presented affected the degree of habiutation shown on the test. On the other hand, the duration but not the amount of the presentation of conditioned stiumulus determined the degree of the latent inhibition effect : the longer the duration, the more salient of the latent inhibition effect was found.