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Effect of Withdrawal from the Negative Cue on Learning a Two-Choice Discrimination

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Abstract

Three groups of rats learned a black-white discrimination in a Grice box. All subjects were reinforced with two food pellets for correct choices. No-Retrace subjects were confined in the negative end-box after errors; Retrace subjects were allowed to withdraw after errors from the negative end-box to the choice-point or start-box; and Take-Out subjects were manually removed from the negative end-box immediately after inspecting the empty food dish. All subjects were trained to criterion and then reversed to criterion. The Retrace group learned the original discrimination significantly slower than both the No-Retrace and Take-Out groups, which did not differ from each other. The same effect occurred on reversal. Apparently, the postnonrein forcement stimuli that the Retrace group encountered retarded discrimination learning.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, 48859, USA

    C. Merle Johnson

  2. Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 48824, USA

    M. Ray Denny

Authors
  1. C. Merle Johnson
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  2. M. Ray Denny
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Additional information

This research is based upon a thesis submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the M.A. degree at Western Michigan University, under the guidance of the second author.

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Johnson, C.M., Denny, M.R. Effect of Withdrawal from the Negative Cue on Learning a Two-Choice Discrimination. Psychol Rec 29, 85–91 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394593

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394593

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