Resistance to Punishment and Subsequent Extinction of a Response as a Function of its Reward History

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Abstract
An instrumental response was trained in humans under 50% partial reward or 100% continuous reward. Partial reinforcement groups subsequently displayed superior resistance to continuous punishment which was coupled with either 100%, 50% or 0% reward. Although resistance to punishment generally increased when it was coupled with more frequent reward, the partial reinforcement groups receiving punishment coupled with either 100% or 50% reward did not differ. Resistance to extinction after punishment treatments was higher for groups trained under partial reward. The results were consistent with the notion of transfer effects between punishment and frustrative nonreward stimuli. In addition, both the punishment and the subsequent extinction of an unwanted response in humans appeared to be importantly determined by the initial acquisition history of the response.