Reinforcement, extinction, and spontaneous recovery in a non-Pavlovian reaction.

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Abstract
"Learning by reward" (Thorndike et al.) was examined in terms of 3 Pavlovian characteristics. 18 rats learned to depress a small bar when a pellet of food was the reinforcement (reward) for each depression, half of the rats receiving 40 reinforcements and half receiving 10. The response was then extinguished (by non-reinforcement) on three successive occasions. During acquisition there was a decrease in latency and an increase in frequency. At the first extinction the 40-reinforcement rats made a reliably greater (D/ς-sub(D) = 3.19) number of responses than the 10-reinforcement group. Contrary to the law of disuse, spontaneous recovery occurred during intervals of 24 hours and 55 days. Decreasing numbers of responses were made during successive extinctions. In terms of the variables considered, this Thorndikian type of reaction showed a functional similarity to the conditioned response. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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