Abstract
Rats in a shuttle box were reinforced by shock termination on 60 training trials. On the day following the end of training, 30 massed extinction trials were given on which shock termination was delayed for 20 sec following the shuttling response. To test for spontaneous recovery, five additional extinction trials were given after recovery intervals of 5 min, 15 min, 60 min, or 24 h. The results showed spontaneous recovery to be a negatively accelerated monotonic function of the recovery interval. Only a very slight increase in spontaneous recovery was observed when the recovery interval was increased from 60 min to 24 h.
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References
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Leeming, F.C., Lightman, J.L. & Newsom, T.J. Spontaneous recovery of an escape response. Psychon Sci 14, 219–220 (1969). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332802
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332802