Spaced and massed practice with a methodological consideration of avoidance conditioning.

Abstract

Studied conditioned avoidance responses in rats in order to determine the effect of massed and spaced trials on resistance to extinction and the methodological importance of reducing the total amount of time to condition and extinguish the response. Found that "progressively massing trials during conditioning with massed trials throughout extinction resulted in significantly increased resistance to extinction. It was noted that this finding is contrary to predictions from fatigue theories of extinction and an alternative interpretation was presented." 19 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)