The Basic Laws of Conditioning Differ for Elemental Cues and Cues Trained in Compound

The cue-duration effect (i.e., longer cues result in less conditioned responding than shorter cues) was examined as a function of whether cues were trained alone or in compound. Compound (AK) or elemental (X) cues of either long or short duration were paired with the unconditioned stimulus. In testing with X alone, the cue-duration effect was observed with elementally trained cues, but not with compound cues. Instead, stronger responding resulted from training with long compound cues relative to short compound cues (i.e., a reversed cue-duration effect). Moreover, an overshadowing effect (i.e., decreased responding due to compound conditioning) was observed when conditioning was conducted with a short cue, but compound conditioning resulted in enhanced responding when it was conducted with a long cue (i.e., reversed overshadowing). These findings are consistent with other recent demonstrations that some laws of learning that apply to elementally trained cues do not similarly apply to cues trained in compound.