Abstract
One group of rats was trained to learn a maze in the traditional manner, while a second group was hand-carried through the maze (during pretraining) for an equal number of trials. Throughout the experiment, reinforcement was available on every third trial for all subjects. When subjects in the second group were allowed to traverse the maze in the usual manner during testing, they made fewer errors and exhibited lower running time as compared to the traditionally trained subjects. Furthermore, both groups exhibited fewer errors and lower running times on trials immediately following reinforcement than on reinforced and prereinforced trials. The results suggested that instrumental performance is not a prerequisite for learning.
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The author wishes to thank Dr. Byron A. Campbell for providing the animals and laboratory facilities at Princeton University, and Dr. Burrton G. Woodruff for his aid with the statistical analyses.
This paper is sponsored by William N. Boyer, who takes full editorial responsibility for its contents.
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Marcattilio, A.J. Performance and nonperformance learning under partial reinforcement. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 6, 530–532 (1975). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337559
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337559