The effect of change in drive level on habit reversal.

Abstract

Using a correction procedure, four groups of hooded rats were trained to run a T-maze to a criterion of 10 out of 12 correct responses and were then trained to reverse the direction of response. The subjects ran under either 1 1/2 or 20 1/2 hours of water deprivation. At the start of reversal learning the deprivation interval was shifted for two groups but left unchanged for the other groups. The results indicate that reversal learning is more rapid under high drive. The discrepancy between this result and results obtained in studies where drive level was defined by scores on the Taylor anxiety scale, and the theoretical implications of this discrepancy, are discussed.