Sequential Effects of Non-Reward in a Skinner Box

1976 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Still ◽  
A. St. C. Macmillan
Keyword(s):  
Partial Reinforcement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Simultaneous Discrimination ◽  
Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect ◽  
Sequential Effects ◽  
Discrete Trials ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Skinner Box ◽  
Suggested Explanation

The partial reinforcement extinction effect was examined within subjects in a simultaneous discrimination in a two bar Skinner box. Discrete trials were used, rats being required to press the bar under the illuminated cue light; one bar was correlated with 100% the other with 50% reinforcement. The three groups differed in the probability of a change in the cue light between trials during acquisition. When this probability was low, the 50% bar was preferred in extinction, while when it was higher (0.433 or 0.875) the 100% bar was preferred. These results confirm Capaldi's (1966) hypothesis of the partial reinforcement extinction effect, and support a suggested explanation of some conflicting results on partial reinforcement effects in a Skinner box.

scholarly journals The Modified Law of Effect Explains the Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin M Seitz ◽  
Alexandra Stolyarova ◽  
Aaron Blaisdell
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Partial Reinforcement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect ◽  
Rapid Extinction ◽  
Paradoxical Finding ◽  
Environmental Reward ◽  
Behavioral Phenomena ◽  
Reward Contingencies ◽  
Selection Of

Thorndike’s Law of Effect provides a framework for understanding the selection of behaviors given specific environmental reward contingencies. Though a highly influential model, especially given its resurgence in popularity to understand habitual behaviors, it fails to predict several well-documented behavioral phenomena and incorrectly views extinction as the unlearning of a previously acquired association. Blaisdell, Stolyarova, & Stahlman (2016) proposed modifications to Thorndike’s original law that address these issues and greatly increases the model’s explanatory power. This modified Law of Effect (MLOE) also provides a testable account of the Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE). The PREE is the paradoxical finding of more rapid extinction to a continuously reinforced cue than to a partially reinforced cue, and has challenged many theoretical accounts of learning. Simulations of the MLOE confirm these predictions. Two experimental paradigms, one using pigeons and the other using humans, show support for the Modified Law of Effect’s explanation of the PREE.

scholarly journals The Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect Depends on Learning about Non-Reinforced Trials Rather than Reinforcement Rate

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Harris ◽  
Dorothy Kwok ◽  
Daniel Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Food Pellet ◽  
Reinforcement Rate ◽  
Partial Reinforcement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect ◽  
Consistent Reinforcement ◽  
Trial Probability ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Conditioned Responding

Conditioned responding extinguishes more slowly after partial (inconsistent) reinforcement than after consistent reinforcement. This Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE) is usually attributed to learning about nonreinforcement during the partial schedule. An alternative explanation attributes it to any difference in the rate of reinforcement, arguing that animals can detect the change to nonreinforcement more quickly after a denser schedule than a leaner schedule. Experiments 1a and 1b compared extinction of magazine responding to a conditioned stimulus (CS) reinforced with one food pellet per trial and a CS reinforced with two pellets per trial. Despite the difference in reinforcement rate, there was no reliable difference in extinction. Both experiments did demonstrate the conventional PREE comparing a partial CS (50% reinforced) with a consistent CS. Experiments 2 and 3 tested whether the PREE depends specifically on learning about nonreinforced trials during partial reinforcement. Rats were trained with two CS configurations, A and AX. One was partially reinforced, the other consistently reinforced. When AX was partial and A consistent, responding to AX extinguished more slowly than to A. When AX was consistent and A was partial, there was no difference in their extinction. Therefore, pairing X with partial reinforcement allowed rats to show a PREE to AX that did not generalise to A. Pairing A with partial reinforcement meant that rats showed a PREE to A that generalised to AX. Thus, the PREE depends on learning about nonreinforced trials during partial reinforcement and is not due to any difference in per-trial probability of reinforcement

scholarly journals The Partial-Reinforcement Extinction Effect Does Not Result from Reduced Sensitivity to Non-Reinforcement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Harris ◽  
Manuel Stephen Seet ◽  
Dorothy Kwok
Keyword(s):  
Conditioned Stimulus ◽  
Reinforcement Schedule ◽  
Conditioned Inhibition ◽  
Reinforcement Rate ◽  
Partial Reinforcement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect

Five experiments used a magazine approach paradigm with rats to investigate whether learning about non-reinforcement is impaired in the presence of a conditioned stimulus (CS) that had been partially reinforced (PRf). Experiment 1 trained rats with a PRf CS and a continuously reinforced (CRf) CS, then extinguished responding to both CSs presented together as a compound. Probe trials of each CS presented alone revealed that extinction was slower for the PRf CS than the CRf CS, despite being extinguished in compound. In Experiment 2, a CRf light was extinguished in compound with either a CRf CS or a PRf CS that had been matched for overall reinforcement rate. Responding to the light extinguished at the same rate regardless of the reinforcement schedule of the other CS. Experiment 3 replicated this result with a PRf light. Thus, we found no evidence that a PRf CS impairs extinction of another CS presented at the same time. Experiments 4 and 5 extended this approach to study the acquisition of conditioned inhibition by training an inhibitor in compound with either a PRf or CRf excitatory CS. The reinforcement schedule of the excitatory CS had no effect on the acquisition of inhibition. In sum, conditioning with a PRf schedule slows subsequent extinction of that CS but does not affect learning about the non-reinforcement of other stimuli presented at the same time. We conclude that the Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect is not due to a decrease in sensitivity to non-reinforcement following presentation of a PRf CS.

scholarly journals The Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect: The Proportion of Trials Reinforced During Conditioning Predicts the Number of Trials to Extinction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. K. Jonas Chan ◽  
Justin Harris
Keyword(s):  
Conditioned Stimulus ◽  
Average Duration ◽  
Partial Reinforcement ◽  
Design Experiment ◽  
Reinforcement Schedules ◽  
Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect ◽  
Expected Number ◽  
Trial Probability ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Per Se

Four experiments compared the extinction of responding to a continuously reinforced (CRf) conditioned stimulus (CS) consistently reinforced on every trial, with extinction of responding to a partially reinforced (PRf) CS that had been inconsistently reinforced. To equate the acquisition of responding between the two CSs, the average duration of the CRf CS was extended so that it scheduled the same overall rate of reinforcement per unit time as the PRf CS. Experiment 1 used a within-subjects design to compare the rates of extinction for a 10-s PRf CS reinforced on 33% of trials versus a 30-s CRf CS. Experiment 2 made the same comparison but using a between-subjects design. Experiment 3 compared extinction in a group trained with a 10-s PRf CS reinforced on 20% of trials and a group trained with a 50-s CRf CS. Experiment 4 compared the rates of extinction following two partial reinforcement schedules, a 10-s PRf CS reinforced on 33% of trial versus a 20-s CRf CS reinforced on 66% of trials. In each experiment, responding took longer to extinguish for the CS that scheduled a lower per-trial probability of reinforcement. Modelling of individual extinction curves using Weibull functions indicated that the latency to initiate extinction was directly related to the per-trial probability of reinforcement learned during acquisition. For example, compared to training with a CRf CS, rats reinforced on 33% of trials took approximately three times as many trials to initiate extinction, and rats reinforced on 20% of trials took five times as many trials to initiate extinction. These results provide support for trial-based accounts of extinction (e.g. Capaldi, 1967), whereby rats learn about the expected number of trials per reinforcer, and extinction depends on the number of expected reinforcers that have been omitted rather than on the number of extinction trials per se.

scholarly journals PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT (ACQUISITION) EFFECTS WITHIN SUBJECTS

1964 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abram Amsel ◽  
John R. MacKinnon ◽  
Michael E. Rashotte ◽  
C. Thomas Surridge
Keyword(s):  
Partial Reinforcement ◽  
Within Subjects

scholarly journals Development of a Selective Extinction through Cognitive Evaluation Paradigm

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birthe Macdonald ◽  
Tom Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Neutral Stimulus ◽  
The Other ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Extinction Group ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Cognitive Evaluation ◽  
Skin Conductance Responses ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Conditioned Responses ◽  
Selective Extinction

In this study we trialled a novel paradigm that aims to bridge the gap between the research into the extinction of conditioned responses and the instructed regulation of emotion via a prescribed strategy. This was done through a process we called Selective Extinction through Cognitive Evaluation (SECE). Participants were conditioned to associate a previously neutral stimulus (letter, CS+) with an aversive burst of white noise (US) and another letter with no aversive event (CS-). In a second phase, the same letters were presented within words belonging to two distinct categories. One group did not receive any more noise bursts during this phase which lead to the extinction of the conditioned responses (extinction group). The other group (SECE group) was told that the CS+ now only carried a risk of the noise occurring when it was presented in one (dangerous), but not the other word category (safe). Affective responses were assessed using skin conductance responses (SCR). We found overall increased SCR’s in response to CS+ (safe and dangerous) compared to CS- trials in the SECE group, and also increased SCR’s in response to dangerous compared to safe CS+ trials. This suggests that the conditioned response (CR) can be reduced through the cognitive evaluation of additional information and it is possible that extinction mechanisms are involved in this process. We did not find any effects in the extinction group. It is possible that extinction was completed too quickly so that any differences between conditions could not be captured. We therefore conducted a second study to pilot an improved paradigm. We visually amended the trials, amended the reinforcement schedule, and changed to a fully within-subjects design. Here we once again found significantly reduced SCR to safe compared to dangerous CS+ trials. Future experiments will use these results as a basis for an improved paradigm to better capture changes in SCR as well as BOLD fMRI in future experiments.

Pairs of Latin Squares to Counterbalance Sequential Effects and Pairing of Conditions and Stimuli

1989 ◽  
Vol 33 (18) ◽  
pp. 1223-1227 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Random Sequence ◽  
Latin Square ◽  
Latin Squares ◽  
Sequential Effects ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Human Factors Research

This paper discusses methods with which one can simultaneously counterbalance immediate sequential effects and pairing of conditions and stimuli in a within-subjects design using pairs of Latin squares. Within-subjects (repeated measures) experiments are common in human factors research. The designer of such an experiment must develop a scheme to ensure that the conditions and stimuli are not confounded, or randomly order stimuli and conditions. While randomization ensures balance in the long run, it is possible that a specific random sequence may not be acceptable. An alternative to randomization is to use Latin squares. The usual Latin square design ensures that each condition appears an equal number of times in each column of the square. Latin squares have been described which have the effect of counterbalancing immediate sequential effects. The objective of this work was to extend these earlier efforts by developing procedures for designing pairs of Latin squares which ensure complete counterbalancing of immediate sequential effects for both conditions and stimuli, and also ensure that conditions and stimuli are paired in the squares an equal number of times.

Effects of Rewarded Pretraining and Partial Reinforcement on Lever Pulling by Retarded and Nonretarded Children

1973 ◽  
Vol 36 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1295-1307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles S. Hayes ◽  
Donald K. Routh
Keyword(s):  
Frustrative Nonreward ◽  
Partial Reinforcement ◽  
Partial Reward ◽  
The Other ◽  
Negative Reaction ◽  
Reinforcement Condition ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Mental Age

The task of pulling 2 levers for marble rewards was given to 72 retarded and 72 nonretarded children matched for mental age (approximately 7 yr.). Half of the children were given a pretraining task on which they experienced success and the other half a control pretraining procedure. On the lever pulling task half the Ss received 50% reward on the first lever and the other half 100% reward on the first lever, both groups being always rewarded after pulling the second lever. Rewarded pretraining led to a slowing down of starting speeds on both levers which was more marked in retarded than in nonretarded children. For nonretarded Ss the 50% reinforcement condition led to consistently faster responding on both levers, but this partial reward superiority was seen in retarded Ss only on the early trials. Interpretations of these effects in terms of Amsel's theory of frustrative nonreward and Zigler's concept of a retardate negative reaction tendency were offered.

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