Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of posttrial episodes (PTEs) on conditioning in rats using a licking conditioned suppression technique. Experiment I revealed that the surprising PTE, as compared with the expected PTE, facilitated conditioning. The interval between the target trial and PTEs was 6s. Experiment II revealed that the effect of surprising PTE was not affected by the interval between the target trial and surprising PTE (4-40s). These results were not consistent with the results of Wagner, Rudy, & Whitlow (1973) using the eyelid conditioning in rabbits and with the Wagner's model concerning the information processing in animals (1976, 1978).
