STIMULUS GENERALIZATION AND EASY-TO-HARD EFFECT

48 hooded Long-Evans male rats trained on an easy 2-stimulus brightness discrimination learned a subsequent difficult brightness discrimination more rapidly than 48 Ss trained only on the difficult problem or than 45 Ss which were learning-to-learn controls. Easy training with 3 stimuli presented in pairs did not produce this effect. Results do not support the attentional interpretation of the easy-to-hard effect, but are predicted by an explanation which assumes interaction of generalized excitation and inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.