Biological Psychology 56 (2001) 45 – 61 What is learned in patterning discriminations? Further tests of configural accounts of associative learning in human electrodermal conditioning Harald Lachnit *, Klaus Lober Department of Psychology, Philipps -Uniersita ¨t Marburg, Gutenbergstr. 18, D-35039 Marburg, Germany Received 4 October 2000; received in revised form 26 November 2000; accepted 29 November 2000 Abstract Two Pavlovian SCR conditioning experiments investigated positive and negative pattern- ing discriminations in humans by means of transfer tests. In Experiment 1, positive patterning (A -,B -, AB +) was trained interleaved with non-reinforced presentations of an additional stimulus (C -). Then responding to new compounds consisting of either already trained elements (AC, BC) or new elements (DE) was examined. In Experiment 2, negative patterning (A +,B +, AB -) was trained interleaved with reinforced presentations of an additional stimulus (C +). Again, we examined responding to new compounds consisting of either already trained elements (AC, BC) or new elements (DE). In both experiments the initial patterning discrimination was solved successfully. The response patterns to the test compounds in both experiments were in contradiction to configural accounts of associative learning. In positive patterning human participants seemed to utilize ‘number’ or some other abstract feature in preference to available concrete stimuli. In negative patterning the abstract dimension of ‘separate-versus-together’ or ‘opposite’ was used. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Pavlovian conditioning; Skin conductance response; Humans; Non-linear discriminations www.elsevier.com/locate/biopsycho * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-6421-2823642; fax: +49-6421-2826621. E-mail addresses: Lachnit@mailer.uni-marburg.de (H. Lachnit), Lober@mailer.uni-marburg.de (K. Lober). 0301-0511/01/$ - see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0301-0511(00)00087-9