Context specificity in pigeon autoshaping

In Experiment 1, pigeons were autoshaped with two stimuli (a and b) in one context, X, and two further stimuli (c and d) in a second context, Y, that differed from the first in a number of visual characteristics. In the test phase subjects received presentations of stimuli a and d in context X and c and b in context Y. The response rate to the stimuli that were tested in the context in which they had been trained, a and c, was higher than that to the stimuli that were trained and tested in different contexts, b and d. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 in which the contexts were differentiated by their odor. These results suggest that contextual cues can influence the retrieval of associative information