Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 8, 4440-4444, Copyright © 1988 by Society for Neuroscience
Conditional discrimination learning in Aplysia californica
RM Colwill, RA Absher and ML Roberts
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York 10032.
Two experiments examined whether the relation between a conditioned
stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) might be brought under the
control of contextual stimuli in the invertebrate Aplysia californica.
Subjects received exposure to 2 different contexts. In both experiments, a
tactile CS was paired with a shock US in one of those contexts. In the
other context, that tactile CS was either nonreinforced (Experiment 1) or
explicitly unpaired with the shock US (Experiment 2). Responding to the CS
during a subsequent test was greater in the context in which that CS had
been paired with the US compared with the context in which it had been
nonreinforced or unpaired. These findings are discussed in terms of
theories of conditional discrimination learning.
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