Although the book mentions contrast effects, so important because of their implications for the determination of
associative strength, it does not address behavioral contrast (the effect that a change in one component of a multiple schedule has on the unchanged component).
This decrease on attention does not imply a decrease on the
associative strength (or, in more general terms, the predictive power of the context) that would be gained by the context at the beginning of training.
where [E.sub.AB] is the
associative strength of the configuration AB; [E.sub.i] is the
associative strength of the i similar configurations that the individual has learned about in the environment; and [S.sub.AB,i] is the similarity, judged by the proportion of shared components, between the configuration AB and these i configurations.
From a psychological point of view, coefficient B3 represents pretrial
associative strength, and coefficient B4--behavioral saturation level for
associative strength.
Context B would acquire some inhibitory strength during extinction that would protect the CS from losing all of its excitatory
associative strength (Thomas & Ayres, 2004; see also Rauhut, Thomas, & Ayres, 2001).
In an overshadowing procedure cues are presented in compound and later tests of the
associative strength of the individual cues may indicate that the learning of one element of the compound was moderated (overshadowed) by the other element of the compound.
In Simpson and Burgess (1985), the
associative strength between the prime (bank) and the target (money) was not controlled.
According to these models, presenting a conditioned inhibitor (A) during extinction treatment with the target CS (S) should decrease the expectation of the absent US (i.e., based on a low total
associative strength of the AS compound), thereby reducing the loss of
associative strength undergone by CS S on each extinction trial (i.e., protection from extinction).
Both RFT and associative conditioning accounts predict, therefore, that trial types involving end terms will produce faster reaction times than those that do not because they possess either the strongest or weakest
associative strengths (note that RFT would describe these effects in terms of the strongest directly trained reinforcing and punishing functions, rather than employing the concept of
associative strength).
Standard accounts of associative learning (e.g., Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) assert that the added stimulus competes with the target CS for a limited amount of
associative strength conditionable by a given reinforcer.
Because the temporal parameters used for each of these groups yield identical ratios of intertrial interval to trial duration and of interreinforcer interval (cycle) to trial duration for both the CS and cover stimuli, Scalar Expectancy Theory (SET) predicts comparable levels of acquired
associative strength across these groups (Gibbon & Balsam, 1981).
Of course, in the present conditions this should be dependent on the relative
associative strength of positive and negative primes.