Influence of Conditions at the Time of Reinforcement upon the Strength of a Secondary Reinforcement Effect

Abstract

Animals were trained to run through a guillotine door into an adjacent compartment for water reinforcement. They were then given access to the compartment as a consequence of bar-pressing, but no water. At the time of testing for bar-pressing various changes were made in the type of response required. For other groups of animals variations were made in the relative sizes of the two compartments during both training and testing. It was found that “getting into the starting box” was as reinforcing as “getting out of the starting box,” that learning in the testing situation did not occur unless previous water reinforcement had been given in one of the compartments, and that changes in the type of response required at the time of testing did not diminish the learning effect.