Extinction following a small number of goal-box placements.

Abstract

Three experiments involved extinction of rats in a straight alley following direct placement in the goal box. Placements were given either before or after running trials in Experiments I and n. In Experiment in only placements with no alley running were given. In each case the presence of a FREE indicated the effectiveness of placements. The data are interpreted in terms of the cue effects of placement.

Runway performance in rats as a function of goal-box placements and goal-event sequence.

“…Indeed, an experiment reported by Brown and Logan (1965) that involved extensive training and required locomotion on placement events found that the effects of the placement procedure were dependent upon the level of training. The literature is quite consistent; after a few placements both nonlocomotive and locomotive ITNs influence Rn (e.g., Brown & Logan, 1965;McCain, Baerwaldt, & Brown, 1969), whereas many placements are ineffective (e.g., Brown & Logan, 1965;Trapold & Doren, 1966) . s And as expected from the discrimination hypothesis, it takes more placement experiences with a procedure that requires running in the goal region for the intertrial nonreinforcement events to lose their effectiveness in enhancing extinction performance.…”