Resistance to extinction as a function of reinforcement schedule: A within-subject design

Abstract

Sixty-four male albino rats were trained to run a straight runway. Half of the subjects were trained on a continuous reinforcement schedule (CRF) and half on a partial reinforcement schedule (PR). On reinforced trials, a lever was introduced into the goalbox and the subject was allowed to make 10 discrete trial leverpresses for sucrose. The lever was not introduced into the goalbox on nonreinforced trials. The subjects were trained under either a CRF or PR leverpress schedule. Upon completion of acquisition half of the subjects in each subgroup were extinguished in the runway and the other half were extinguished in the goalbox on the lever. Results showed that for subjects extinguished on the lever the partial reinforcement effect (PRE) was a function only of the lever reinforcement schedule and was independent of the runway reinforcement schedule. However for subjects extinguished in the runway, PR runway-trained subjects receiving CRF leverpress training were more resistant to extinction than were PR runway-trained subjects receiving PR leverpress training.