Overtraining, Transfer to Proprioceptive Control and Position Reversal
Open Access
- 1 March 1965
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
- Vol. 17 (1), 26-36
- https://doi.org/10.1080/17470216508416405
Abstract
If rats are overtrained on a visual discrimination they generally learn the reversal of the discrimination faster than non-overtrained rats. In position discriminations, however, this effect does not generally hold—indeed several investigators have found overtraining to retard position reversal. One of the important differences between the two types of problem seems to be the presence of irrelevant cues in visual discriminations, and their absence in position discriminations. It is suggested that a second important feature of position discriminations is that overtraining usually causes control of the maze running habit to be transferred from external to proprioceptive stimuli, and that successful reversal cannot normally occur until external control is re-established. In two experiments a study by Krechevsky and Honzik (1932) is repeated with certain modifications, with results that support this hypothesis; and a third experiment provides direct evidence of transfer to proprioceptive control in a T-maze. It is shown that this analysis will explain the apparently conflicting results of all recent position reversal experiments.Keywords
This publication has 32 references indexed in Scilit:
- Reversal learning in rats as a function of percentage of reinforcement and degree of learning.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1963
- Overlearning Reversal Effect in a Spatial Discrimination TaskPerceptual and Motor Skills, 1963
- Overlearning and position reversal.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1962
- Frustrative nonreward in partial reinforcement and discrimination learning: Some recent history and a theoretical extension.Psychological Review, 1962
- Resistance to extinction after varying amounts of discriminative or nondiscriminative instrumental training.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1962
- Reversal and transfer learning following overtraining in rat and chicken.Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 1961
- Analysis of the role of overlearning in discrimination reversal.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1961
- The role of overlearning and drive level in reversal learning.Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 1958
- Response reversal following different amounts of training.Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 1957
- Orientation in the white ratJournal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 1908