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Learning is usually more rapid when consecutive learning trials are distributed in time rather than massed in time. This phenomenon, known as the trial-spacing effect, appears to be ubiquitous. It has been demonstrated in a number of different species (including humans, rats, pigeons, fruit flies, and sea slugs [Hermissenda]) and in a number of associative learning tasks (including appetitive and aversive classical conditioning, autoshaping, eyelid conditioning, taste-aversion learning, and categorization).
The trial-spacing effect has been studied particularly extensively in classical conditioningin animals. In this method, animals learn to respond to a conditioned stimulus (CS), such as a tone, that has been repeatedly paired with a biologically significant event (an unconditioned stimulus, or US), such as a foot shock or a food pellet. The trial-spacing effect takes the form of more rapid learning when the CS–US pairings...
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Todd, T.P., Bouton, M.E. (2012). Trial-Spacing Effect in Associative Learning. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_950
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_950
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