Resistance to extinction of a running response following partial reinforcement under widely spaced trials.
- 1 January 1954
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
- Vol. 47 (4) , 318-322
- https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054129
Abstract
Forty-eight hooded rats were made to acquire and then extinquish a runway response at a 24-hr. intertrial interval under 23 hr. of food deprivation. Four groups received 100, 80, 50, and 30% random reinforcement during a 75-day acquisition series; then all groups received a 20-day extinction series. For the last ten days of acquisition there were no significant group differences in latency and running time. During extinction, group differences were significant beyond the .01 level, with an inverse relationship between percentage of reinforcement and resistance to extinction. In view of the large intertrial interval, the extinction results cannot be handled by the Hull-Sheffield hypothesis. A modified contiguity theory was proposed to handle these results. It remains possible that both theories may be useful in dealing with massed-trial experiments.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Extinction as a function of partial reinforcement and distribution of practice.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1949