Role of association cortex in sensory preconditioning.

Abstract

Sensory preconditioning (SPC) training involved paired light and tone presentations, followed by avoidance conditioning to light, followed by extinction to tone (test of SPC). Un- operated cats showed significant SPC relative to unoperated controls given random unpaired lights and tones, or no stimuli, in pretraining. Lesion groups demonstrated that (a) ablation of cortical association response fields prior to all training prevented subsequent development of SPC, and (b) ablation of somatic sensory cortex prior to all training (lesion control) had no effect on subsequent development of SPC. Results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that cortical association response fields play a special role in "attentional" aspects of behavior.