The effect of an extra stimulus upon strength of response during acquisition and extinction.

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Abstract
An extraneous stimulus, a buzzer, was introduced during various stages of acquisition and extinction of the white rat''s response of running an elevated maze. Latency was used as the measure of response strength. One group of 10 rats served as the control group. For four groups of 10 rats each, the buzzer was introduced before the 4th acquisition and the 2d extinction trials, the 8th acquisition and 4th extinction trials, the 12th acquisition and 5th extinction trials and the 14th acquisition and 6th extinction trials. On the average, with individual exceptions, the effect of introducing the buzzer during acquisition was a consistent decrement in response strength, whose magnitude decreased as the running response became stronger with successive reinforcements. When the buzzer was introduced before the 2d extinction trial, the mean latency of response was reduced to what it had been on the first extinction trial; before the 4th, 5th or 6th extinction trial, the effect was small and equivocal in direction. The results are interpreted tentatively in terms of an interference theory.
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