Discrete-Trial Bar-Pressing Performance as a Function of Length of Response Chain, Number of Reinforcements, and Percentage Reward
- 1 June 1965
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Psychological Reports
- Vol. 16 (3_suppl), 1109-1116
- https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1965.16.3c.1109
Abstract
Eight groups of 8 hooded rats were assigned to a 2 × 2 × 2 design of 32 or 128 acquisition trials, 50% or 100% reward, and chains of 1 or 8 bar-presses. Starting speeds were examined, as were trials to an extinction criterion of 5 min. without completing a response chain. During acquisition, performance was an increasing function of the number of trials and percentage reward. For the 128-trial groups, at 1:1 reward 50% rewarded Ss responded significantly faster than 100% Ss; however, at 8:1 reward there was no significant difference due to percentage reward. The number of trials to extinction was an increasing function of the number of acquisition trials and a decreasing function of length of response chain. While all other groups reflected a rise in performance with an increase in number of acquisition trials, the 100%-8:1 groups showed no change in performance due to this variable.This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
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