Abstract
Overtraining facilitated reversal of a brightness discrimination in rats, but retarded reversal in chicks. One explanation for this difference is that the relevant brightness cue was a more dominant one for chicks, so that overtraining could not strengthen the response of attending to it. In support of this suggestion, chicks did show a significant overtraining reversal effect in a more complex orientation discrimination. Two further experiments showed that if responses were extinguished before reversal, then the slow reversal learners (nonovertrained rats in the brightness problem, nonovertrained chicks in the orientation problem, overtrained chicks in the brightness problem) showed a significant increase in choice of their former S+ in early reversal trials.

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