Effects of Reinforcement, Neutral and Test Trials upon Paired-Associate Acquisition and Retention

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Abstract
3 experiments, with 185 college students, were conducted under three types of basic repetitive acquisition sequences: (1) massed condition with successive reinforcement (R) trials, (2) spaced conditions with neutral ( N) trials between the Rs, and (3) conditions with these Ns replaced by test (T) trials. Although no changes occurred in response probabilities over two and four successive Ts, over-all learning was greatly facilitated by the occurrences of Ts. Thus, the unique function of unreinforced Ts, as compared to the other trials, is to potentiate the subsequent Rs. Conditioning occurs on Rs, but not on Ts. The spaced conditions with N(s) were more advantageous than the massed ones. Retention loss observed during the 5- and 12-min. interpolated tasks was insignificant. Support was given for the stimulus fluctuation model but not for the total time or the constant reinforcement hypotheses.

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