Associative learning theories assume that cue interaction and, specifically, retrospective revaluation occur only when the target cue is previously trained in compound with the to-be-revalued cue. However, there are recent demonstrations of retrospective revaluation in the absence of compound training (e.g., Matute & Pineño, 1998a, 1998b). Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that cue interaction should be stronger when the cues are trained together than when they are trained apart. In two experiments with humans, we directly compared compound and elemental training of cues. The results showed that retrospective revaluation in the elemental condition can be as strong as and, sometimes, stronger than that in the compound condition. This suggests that within-compound associations are not necessary for retrospective revaluation to occur and that these effects can possibly be best understood in the framework of general interference theory. In the literature of animal conditioning and human associative learning, it is well known that if a cue, X, is consistently followed by an outcome, O (i.e., X–O), X is generally learned as a predictor of the occurrence of the outcome. It is also well known that responding to X in a subsequent test phase becomes altered if another cue, A, is trained in compound with X as a predictor of the same outcome. Some classic instances of these cue interaction effects in the animal learning literature are overshadowing (Pavlov, 1927), blocking (Kamin, 1968), conditioned inhibition (Pavlov, 1927), and the relative stimulus validity

Most theoretical accounts of backward blocking place heavy stress on the necessity of the target cue having been trained in compound with the competing cue to produce a decrement in responding. Yet, other evidence suggests that a similar reduction in responding to the target cue can be observed when the outcome is later paired with a novel cue never trained in compound with the target cue (interference between cues trained apart). The present experiment shows that pairing another nonassociated cue with the same outcome may be sufficient to produce a decremental effect on the target cue, but the presence of a within-compound association between the target and the competing cue adds to this effect. Thus, both interference between cues trained apart and within-compound associations independently contribute to backward blocking.

Abstract not found

Retroactive interference between cues trained apart has been regarded as an effect that occurs because the target and interfering associations share a common outcome. Although this view is consistent with evidence in the verbal learning tradition (Underwood, 1966) and, more recently, in predictive learning with humans (Pineño & Matute, 2000), little research has been conducted to ascertain whether the occurrence of this effect critically depends on the target and interfering associations sharing an identical outcome. The present experiment examined, in predictive learning with humans, retroactive interference between cues trained apart as a function of the similarity of the outcome paired with the cues. Interference was found to be stronger when the cues were paired with the same outcome than when they were paired with either similar or different outcomes.