Ethanol and stimulus generalization

Two experiments examined stimulus generalization after injection of a dose of ethanol that did not affect motor performance (.8 g/kg). Generalization of conditioned suppression to tone frequencies was assessed in the first study with rats. In the second study, generalization of the pigeon’s autoshaped keypeck was examined along a line-tilt continuum. In both experiments, ethanol had no significant effect upon the height or shape of the generalization gradient. The second experiment also contained a dose-response analysis of keypecking in a hue-discrimination task. A low dose of ethanol (.4 g/kg) increased CS+ responding, a moderate dose (.8 g/kg) had no effect, and a high dose (1.2 g/kg) depressed responding. Responding to CS— was unaffected by any dose.