Juan M Rosas

Universidad de Jaén | UJAEN · Department of Psychology

The Morris Water Maze (MWM) is considered the most efficient test to evaluate spatial learning and memory in a simple and controlled way in nonhuman animals. The theoretical development in spatial cognition that has allowed the use of MWM has motivated the interest in establishing similar tasks with which to replicate these results, and advance in...

Two experiments were conducted to test the effect of experiencing associative interference on later learning. A predictive learning task was used in which human participants had to evaluate whether plants would grow or not (Outcome) after being watered with different fertilizers (Cues). Experiment 1 found that the increase in the prediction error p...

Two experiments evaluated whether the experience of extinction makes acquisition context specific (EMACS) while the extinction learning itself also becomes context dependent under ABA and ABC renewal designs in a human predictive learning situation. Two groups of participants received X-Outcome pairings in context A followed by P-Outcome pairings i...

Previous research has shown that instrumental training can encourage the formation of binary associations between the representations of the elements present at the time of learning, that is, between the discriminative stimulus and the instrumental response (the S-R association), between the stimulus and outcome (the S-O association), and between t...

One experiment evaluated the effect of extinction on the context dependence of non-extinguished information in a situation in which physical (images), rather than predominantly verbal, contexts were used in human predictive learning. Participants received training in which different foods (Cues) were associated with the presence or the absence of g...

Two experiments determined the effect of interference training on subsequent spatial learning in a Morris water maze. Rats first learned that a platform was located in a quadrant marked by landmarks A and B. Different groups of rats either continued or reversed that training. In the reversal condition the platform was opposite to the initially trai...

Three experiments with rats assessed the effects of introducing predictive ambiguity by reversing a Pavlovianly trained discrimination on subsequent context and temporal conditioning. The experience of discrimination reversal did not facilitate context conditioning when the food was presented on a variable time schedule (Experiment 1a). However, in...

Context dependence of information has been shown to be based, at least in part, on the attention contexts received at the time of training. Recent research suggests that attention to irrelevant contexts may be a byproduct of the activation of a general exploratory attentional mechanism prompted by high prediction errors associated with situations o...

Three experiments tested the effect of experiencing extinction on learning about a differential conditioned inhibitor that was trained as an excitor. A human predictive learning task was used in which participants had to evaluate the probability of different colored fertilizers (Cues) leading plants to flourish or not (Outcome). Experiment 1 found...

Three experiments in human predictive learning assessed the modulating role of instructions on context-switch effects on performance after different levels of training. Cue X (a food name) was paired with an outcome (gastric malaise) in Context A (a specific restaurant), whereas another cue, Y, was presented in the absence of outcome in Context B....

Retrieval of a flavor–illness association has been found to show contextual dependence when the association is learned after a nontarget flavor–illness association has been extinguished in what has been named as the extinction makes acquisition context-specific (EMACS) effect. Four experiments were designed to further explore the EMACS effect in co...

Two experiments were conducted with the goal of exploring the effect of experiencing associative interference upon concurrent learning about conditioned stimuli and contexts in rats’ appetitive conditioning. During the first training phase, two groups of rats received a conditioned stimulus (CS1) followed by food, whereas another conditioned stimul...

One experiment in human predictive learning explored the impact of a context change on attention to contexts and predictive ratings controlled by the cue. In Context A: cue X was paired with an outcome four times, while cue Y was presented without an outcome four times in Context B:. In both contexts filler cues were presented without the outcome....

The main of this study began in the exploration of effect the changes value of outcome on the attention to irrelevant context, as an important factor to the information of the associations cueoutcome in a human predictive learning task. The participants received training in which evaluate if a product (cue) was followed by discount (outcome) in a d...

p class="p1">Theories of beauty perception have tilting between the importance of the golden section, and the importance of cultural and learning factors on perception of beauty. The contradiction between those approaches may be solved by taking in account the real golden proportion rather than the ideal golden proportion. A new framework to conduc...

Select literature regarding cue competition, the contents of learning, and retrieval processes is summarized to demonstrate parallels and differences between human and nonhuman associative learning. Competition phenomena such as blocking, overshadowing, and relative predictive validity are largely analogous in animal and human learning. In general,...

A review of the literature suggests that attention, specifically attention to the contexts, also plays a relevant role on information retrieval. It also shows that attention to the contexts is modulated by the ambiguity of the situation, and the informative value contexts have. The virtues and limitations of different attentional theories of learni...

Four experiments in human instrumental learning explored the associations involving the context that develop after three trials of training on simple discriminations. Experiments 1 and 4 found a deleterious effect of switching the learning context that cannot be explained by the context-outcome binary associations commonly used to explain context-s...

An experiment on taste sensory analysis was conducted to explore the effects of manipulating signal intensity and response incentives on sensitivity and decision processes when evaluating basic tastes under high ecological validity conditions. Salt concentration (0.07%, 0.1% or 0.75%) and payoff matrices that were intended to produce lenient, conse...

Participants were trained in a human predictive learning task in which they had to predict whether the ingestion of a given food (cue) by the imaginary customer of an imaginary restaurant (context) was followed by gastric malaise (outcome). One food was always followed by gastric malaise in one of the contexts, while other foods were not followed b...

Two experiments evaluated the impact of different deviations from golden proportion on subjective perception of beauty. Black and white adaptations of Mondrian paintings modified to fit golden, 1/6 and 1/2 proportions were used as stimuli. Within each trial, participants were exposed to two versions of the same painting on a computer screen. Partic...

An experiment on taste sensory analysis of an artificially arranged compound of salty and sour flavors was conducted with the goal of evaluating sensory performance to a mixture of flavors akin to natural food, but that allows for keeping a higher experimental control than natural foods do. Participants performed a detection task in which the conce...

The main goal of this study was to explore whether extinction of schedule-induced adjunctive drinking (polydipsia) may become under contextual control. Drinking was induced by a Fixed-Time 30 sec food delivery schedule (FT30). Experiment 1 used a 2 x 2 factorial design with Schedule (FT30 vs. food at the start of the session), and Stimulus (Presenc...

Las técnicas de devaluación e inflación de la consecuencia se han utilizado para evaluar la asociación respuesta-consecuencia (R-C) en animales. Se realizaron dos experimentos con el objetivo de proponer una técnica que permitiera el estudio de la relación R-C en seres humanos. En el Experimento 1 se encontró que la devaluación de una de las consec...

The analysis of the quality of olive oils is a complex task but highly relevant to achieve the transfer of the benefits associated to its consumption to the general population. Highly specialized tasting panels usually conduct measurement of its properties. However, traditional methods confound sensory precision with other aspects related to the ta...

In two experiments with rats, we analyzed the effect of experiencing extinction in one task on the context specificity of a new association learned within a different task. Rats were trained to run in a runway for water in Task 1, and received taste aversion conditioning in Task 2 (the tasks were reversed in Exp. 2). Half of the rats received condi...

Two experiments were conducted to explore the associations involved in human predictive learning. Experiment 1 found that post-training devaluation of one of the outcomes by instructing participants that one of the attackers was indestructible, led to a significant decrease in participants' predictive responses to the cue that was initially followe...

The present article reviews the effects of changing the background context on performance in associative learning tasks in humans and animals. The findings are complementary and consistent over animal conditioning (Pavlovian and instrumental learning) and human predictive learning and memory paradigms. In many cases, a context change after learning...

Two experiments explored whether forgetting of an association depended on previous extinction of a different association in rats. Experiment 1 found that when rats were conditioned and extinguished with flavor X, a subsequently acquired conditioned aversion to flavor Y was reduced by a 19-day retention interval, something that did not occur when X...

León, Abad y Rosas, (2010b) demostraron que la atención al contexto se pierde conforme aumenta el entrenamiento. Así, a medida que aumenta el entrenamiento se observa una mayor generalización entre contextos distintos al de entrenamiento al perderse la atención. El objetivo del presente estudio fue poner a prueba ésta idea empleando una tarea instr...

León, Abad and Rosas (2010b) shown that as the training increased attention to the context decreased. Thus, increasing the training might produce a greater generalization between different contexts. The main goal of the present experiments was to test this idea modifying different values of the context (i. e., colors) using an instrumental task wit...

An experiment was conducted using a human instrumental learning task with the goal of evaluating the mechanisms underlying the deleterious effect of context-switching on responding to an unambiguous stimulus when contexts are informative to solve the task. Participants were trained in a context-based reversal discrimination in which two iscriminati...

Context specificity of rats' conditioned taste aversion as a function of context experience was assessed in two experiments. Rats received a single pairing between a flavor X and a LiCl injection in a distinctive context (context A) being subsequently tested either in the same context or in a different but equally familiar context (context B). Expe...

Three experiments were conducted with the aim of studyng extinction, and extinction related phenomena using a causal-learning task in human beings. Experiment 1 found that the excitatory asscociation between a ficttious medicine and an illness can be extinguished by repeated exposure to the medicine without the illness. Experiment 2 found spontaneo...

Four experiments explored the role of contexts in information retrieval after different levels of acquisition training in human predictive learning. Participants were trained where cue (X) was followed by an outcome in context A while a different cue (Y) was followed by the absence of the outcome in context B. When 4 training trials with each cue w...

Predictive value for continuously reinforced cues is affected by context changes when they are trained within a context in which a different cue undergoes partial reinforcement. An experiment was conducted with the goal of exploring the mechanisms underlying this context-switch effect. Human participants were trained in a predictive learning situat...

Contexts are sometimes informative about relationships that occur within them and sometimes not. The goal of this experiment was to determine the effect of that information value on the context-specificity of learning. Participants performed an instrumental task within a computer game in which they defended different Andalucía beaches (contexts) by...

Two experiments explored the role of ambiguity on context processing by using relative stimulus validity designs in human predictive learning. Two groups of participants were trained with 2 stimulus compounds (XY and XZ). In Group TD (true discrimination), compound XY was always followed by the outcome, whereas compound XZ was never followed by it....

Sensory evaluation of olive oil has been conducted by using the Classical Threshold Theory perspective. This approach does not allow the separation of purely sensory processes from other factors that may affect performance such as tasters' cognitive biases. Two experiments were conducted with the goal of developing a task that, using the logic of S...

Three experiments were conducted to explore the effects of different interference treatments upon outcome-specific transfer from predictive learning to instrumental responding. A computer game was designed in which participants had to defend Andalusia from navy and air-force attacks. Participants learned the relationship between two instrumental re...

The goal of this experiment was to assess the impact that experience with a task has on the context specificity of the learning that occurs. Participants performed an instrumental task within a computer game where different responses were performed in the presence of discriminative stimuli to obtain reinforcers. The number of training trials (3, 5,...

The present experiment was designed with the goal of studying the partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE) in female inbred Roman high- (RHA-I) and low-avoidance (RLA-I) rats. Two groups of RHA-I and two of RLA-I food-deprived animals were placed in a straight alley where they were partially or continuously reinforced. Once the animals reache...

An experiment was conducted with the goal of exploring strain differences between female inbred Roman High and Low Avoidance rats (RHA-I, and RLA-I, respectively) on acquisition and extinction of a food-rewarded running response in a straight alley. Acquisition proceeded faster in the less emotional RHA-I and Wistar rats (used as controls) than in...

An experiment in human predictive learning was conducted with the goal of exploring the role of the informative value of the context where the information is learned on context dependency of performance. Three groups of participants received training on a discrimination between two cues (X and Y) while another cue (Z) was always followed by the out...

An experiment in human predictive learning was conducted with the goal of exploring the role of the informative value of the context where the information is learned on context dependency of performance. Three groups of participants received training on a discrimination between two cues (X and Y) while another cue (Z) was always followed by the out...

An experiment in human predictive learningwas conducted with the goal of exploring the roleof the informative value of the context where theinformation is learned on context dependency of performance.Three groups of participants received trainingon a discrimination between two cues (X and Y)while another cue (Z) was always followed by the outcomein...

Human participants were trained in a trial-by-trial contingency judgements task in which they had to predict the probability of an outcome (diarrhoea) following different cues (food names) in different contexts (restaurants). Cue P was paired with the outcome on half of the trials (partial reinforcement), while cue C was paired with the outcome on...

It has been recently shown that Roman high- (RHA) and low- (RLA) avoidance rats show behavioural divergence in successive negative contrast (SNC) induced in one-way avoidance learning [Torres C, Cándido A, Escarabajal MD, de la Torre L, Maldonado A, Tobeña A, et al. Successive negative contrast effect in one-way avoidance learning in female roman r...

Four experiments explored signal timing in human conditioned avoidance. Participants received discrimination training with different duration signals that announced the outcome (S+) or not (S-). Temporal discrimination and superposition of performance to S+ signals of different length (3, 6, or 9 s) was found both in within-subjects (Experiment 1a)...

Four experiments were conducted to study the contents of human instrumental conditioning. Experiment 1 found positive transfer between a discriminative stimulus (SD) and an instrumental response (R) that shared the outcome (O) with the response that was originally trained with the SD, showing the formation of an SD-O association. Experiment 2 found...

Cet article décrit une série d'études sur le jugement causal qui montre qu'une réponse éteinte peut resurgir : 1) dans un contexte différent de celui où a été appris l'extinction ; 2) avec le passage du temps après l'apprentissage de l'extinction ; 3) lors d'une simple réexposition au stimulus qui a cessé d'être présenté pendant l'extinction. La th...

A conditioned taste aversion experiment tested context-switch effects on retrieval of conditioned stimulus (CS)-unconditioned stimulus (US) acquisition performance in rats. A context switch impaired performance when the target flavour was trained in a context where a different flavour underwent extinction. Conditioned taste aversion in the absence...

Se realizaron tres experimentos en los que se exploró el efecto de renovación en aversión condicionada al sabor en función del número de ensayos de extinción. En el Experimento 1, tres grupos de ratas recibieron un ensayo de condicionamiento, donde una solución de sacarina se emparejó con LiCl, seguido por tres ensayos de extinción y dos ensayos de...

This present study used a video game to replicate the superposition effect of the inhibition of delay in the conditioned avoidance paradigm. Three stimulus durations were used: 3, 6, and 9 seconds (two signals of each, one reinforced and the other non-reinforced). Results showed that the avoidance response reached a maximum at the stimulus offset,...

Five experiments were conducted to explore trial order and retention interval effects upon causal predictive judgments. Experiment 1 found that participants show a strong effect of trial order when a stimulus was sequentially paired with two different outcomes compared to a condition where both outcomes were presented intermixed. Experiment 2 found...

Two experiments were conducted with the aim of designing a videogame for the study of human conditioned avoidance. Participants had to destroy enemy spaceships with the goal of increasing the score in a counter. Coloured signals might announce the launching of a bomb that could hit participant's spaceship producing a 30 points decrease in participa...

Four experiments tested context switch effects on acquisition and extinction in human predictive learning. A context switch impaired probability judgments about a cue-outcome relationship when the cue was trained in a context in which a different cue underwent extinction. The context switch also impaired judgments about a cue trained in a context d...

The role of context in retrieval of the information is explored, focusing in the differential effects of context change on acquisition and interfering information. Retrieval theory has proposed that context changes affect a specific type of information, either inhibitory or second-learned, interfering information. We propose a modification of retri...

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the context switch effect upon retrieval of the information about a cue-outcome relationship in human predictive learning. The results replicated the well-known effect of renewal of the cue-outcome relationship due to a context change after a retroactive interference treatment, as much as the null effect o...

Este libro nace a partir de un symposium titulado "Extinción y recuperación de la información en aprendizaje causal: perspectivas teóricas" organizado en el marco del XV Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Psicología Comparada, celebrado en Barcelona en septiembre del año 2003 y en el que la mayoría de los grupos hispanos dedicados a este tema pres...

An experiment assessed the impact of varying levels of interference on reinstatement in human causal learning. Participants studied fictitious customer files to learn relationships between foods and gastric illness in acquisition. During interference training, a new relationship was learned between the same foods and a different illness over 12, 15...

Transfer of behavioral control by a discriminative stimulus (SD) between different instrumental responses trained with the same outcome has been consistently observed in nonhuman animals, regardless of whether the discriminative stimulus and the instrumental response have undergone extinction. Based on this result, it has been proposed that extinct...

Response-Outcome (R-O) association in animals has been evaluate by using the devaluation and inflation techniques. Two experiments were conducted with the aim of proposing a technique that would allow for the study of the R-O relationship in humans. Experiment 1 found that postconditioning devaluation of the outcome selectively reduces the response...

Four experiments were conducted to explore the mechanism of reinstatement in human causal learning. After a retroactive interference treatment in which a stimulus was first followed by an outcome (A+) and then followed by a di