Abstract
The main aim of this series of experiments was to clearly establish the spontaneous development of retention performance following partial aversively motivated training. Experiment 1 indicated that following 15 training trials of a brightness discrimination in a Y-maze, performance spontaneously and transitorily deteriorated 1 h following inital training (Kamin effect) before it improved 8 to 14 days following training (long-term spontaneous improvement). Both of these fluctuations preceded the more durable deterioration that corresponds to long-term forgetting. Experiment 2 replicated the basic findings of the first experiment, always with a brightness discrimination, but using an avoidance paradigm. These results demonstrated the multiphasic nature of the retention curve and emphasized the reliability of retention performance fluctuations.
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Gisquet-Verrier, P., Alexinsky, T. Time-dependent fluctuations of retention performance in an aversively motivated task. Animal Learning & Behavior 16, 58–66 (1988). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209044
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209044