Effect of interpolated extinction and level of training on the "depression effect."

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Abstract
The fact that rats shifted from large to small reward may undershoot the performance of a base line control group (depression effect) has been previously accounted for in terms of frustration concepts. Experiment I was designed to test a prediction that frustration experience prior to a downward shift in reward magnitude would decrease or prevent the occurrence of the depression effect. The effects of 2 levels of preshift training were included as controls for number of trials and number of rewarded trials. Experiment II studied the effects of interpolated extinction trials when the number of extinction trials exceeded, or was less than, the number of rewarded training trials. It was found that the depression effect was stronger the greater the number of preshift trials, and that its strength was reflected differentially among the response measures at given points of postshift training. Interpolated extinction trials produced little or no reduction in the depression effect. This last finding raises related questions concerning the effect of experimental extinction on S''s [subjects] representational response of reward magnitude, and the adequacy of a frustration-theory interpretation of the depression effect.

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