Abstract
Albino rats were repeatedly conditioned and extinguished on a bar-pressing response in three experiments that employed number of reinforcements, and either pattern of reinforcement or schedule of reinforcement as the independent variables. The extinction functions obtained were interpreted as evidence that (a) number of reinforcements is not an unequivocal determinant of extinction responding, and (b) further investigation of the relative contributions of both the reinforcement and non-reinforcement histories of the organism to subsequent extinction responding is needed, if the extinction functions obtained from alternating aquisition-extinction paradigms are to be accurately predicted.
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This research was supported in part by Public Health Service Research Grants MH-08775, MH-08795, and MH-12025, Robert W. Schaeffer, principal investigator. Our indebtedness to R. E. Lushene, T. A. Smith, and R. B. Shumake for their assistance in carrying out the statistical analyses reported in this paper is gratefully acknowledged.
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Schaeffer, R.W., Burks, C.D., Ternes, J.W. et al. Resistance to Extinction Functions in Rats Exposed to Alternating Acquisition and Extinction Sessions. Psychol Rec 19, 225–245 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393846
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393846