Extinction of conditioned fear as a function of percentage of reinforcement.

Abstract
Extinction of conditioned fear following partial and continuous reinforcement schedules was evaluated in 2 experiments with rats. No partial reinforcement effect (PRE) was observed in Experiment 1 with a startle-response measure or in Experiment 2 with a response-suppression (conditioned emotional response-CER) measure, when fear conditioning was separated from the indicant bar-pressing situation. When, however, in Experiment 2, fear conditioning was administered while S [subject] was in the bar-pressing situation, sizable PRE was obtained. These results clarify the apparent discrepancy between previous CER studies in which PRE has been obtained, even with extended intertrial intervals, and classical conditioning studies with animals in which PRE has been difficult to produce.

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