The effect of change in drive level on habit reversal.

Successive discrimination reversal performance as a function of level of drive and incentive

“…Results of studies involving variation in drive level upon original discrimination and single reversal performance, as reported previously, are generally not in agreement with each other (Armus, 1958;Buchwald & Yamaguchi, 1955;Eisman, Asinow, & Maltzman, 1956;Kendler& Lachman, 1958;Wike, Blocher, & Knowles, 1963). It appears, however, that these disparate results may become interpretable by positing the tentative hypothesis that the effect of drive level upon the performance of an original discrimination or single reversal problem is a function of the magnitude of reward employed.…”

“…In investigations manipulating drive level alone, results have been variable; high drive sometimes facilitates and sometimes retards discrimination and/or reversal acquisition (Arnms, 1958;Buchwald & Yamaguchi, 1955;Eisman, Asinow, & Maltzman, 1956;Kendler & Lachman, 1958;Wike, Blocher, & Knowles, 1963).…”

Habit reversal as a function of schedule of reinforcement and drive strength.

“…Of three recent studies (2,3,11) designed to investigate the influence of drive strength on habit reversal, none reported any retarding effect of high drive during reversal training. It need be mentioned, however, that in all three studies the habit reversal was executed fairly rapidly.…”

“…It is necessary, therefore, when attempting to discover the influence of drive strength during habit reversal, to separate the successive interfering and facilitating effects of high drive during the aforementioned suc-cessive stages of reversal training. 2 This was done in the present study by deliberately designing an experimental problem that would produce slow reversal learning.…”

Some effects of prefeeding and training upon rate and precision of bar-pressing response.

“…However, as Kimble (1961) succinctly states: "Experimental evidence on this point is inconsistent. Some investigators (Buchwald and Yamaguchi, 1955;Tolman and Gleitman, 1949;Powlowski, 1953;Dinsmoor, 1952;Eisman, 1956;Eisman, Asimow, and Maltzman, 1956) have obtained evidence that increased drive improves discrimination. Others have obtained either no effect (Teel, 1952;Teel and Webb, 1951;Miles, 1959;Meyer, 1951), or an indication that, under certain conditions, increased drive may actually interfere (Bruner, Matter, and Papanek, 1955;Yerkes and Dodson, 1908) [p.…”