Affiliation:
1. Veterans Administration Hospital, Syracuse, New York
Abstract
The study was designed to test three hypotheses of the small-trials partial-reinforcement effect. Seventy-two hooded rats received either continuous reward or partial reward for 6 acquisition trials in a runway. Prior to acquisition, an equal number of Ss in each schedule condition were given 0, 5, or 10 rewarded goal-box placements. A strong small-trials partial-reinforcement effect was evident. There was an effect of placements on both initial and terminal acquisition-performance, indicating that rg–sg was preconditioned to goal-box cues. However, this preconditioned rg–sg failed to influence persistence of responding during extinction. The extinction results are contrary to two frustration analyses but do not contradict an analysis of aftereffects.