BEHAVIOR CHANGES DURING REPEATED EIGHT‐DAY EXTINCTIONS¹

Abstract

Pigeons were given repeated two-day conditionings alternating with eight-day extinctions using a trial procedure. One group had different key colors during each of the first five conditioning-extinction pairs; another group had the same key color throughout. Total extinction responses of both groups were quite constant over successive extinctions. This finding differs from the rapid declines found in most previous studies with bar-press and key-peck responses. The difference probably was due to our longer extinctions, because responses early in each extinction did decrease. However, that decrease was neutralized by increases in responses late in each extinction. The two opposite changes indicate the influence of two different factors during repeated extinctions, with neither factor having much stimulus specificity. The reduction of early responses may result from feeding changes confounded with extinction. The increase in later extinction responses may result from a decrease in the effect of unreinforced responses after their repeated occurrence. Comparisons among the above studies indicate that the following influences on repeated extinctions are likely, though in view of extensive confouinding of variables these conclusions are tentative until carefully controlled comparisons are made. A decrease in successive extinctions seems to be favored by (1) use of bar-press or key-peck responses rather than alleys or jumping stands, (2) measurement of number of responses in extinction rather than latencies or running times, (3) massing of extinction responses by free-operant techniques or short ITIs as compared with several minute or 24-hr ITIs, (4) increase in extinction trials per extinction, (5) not giving reinforcements following the extinction and within the same daily session, (6) increasing the difference between the ITI during extinction and the ITI between the last unreinforced trial and the first reinforced trial, and (7) continuous rather than intermittent reinforcement.Most of the above studies involved rather brief extinction periods, often only part of a session, and few data are available concerning repetition of long extinction periods. Jenkins (1961) gave pigeons two 10-day extinctions and found the usual decline, but the duration of his second conditioning was less than one 181 1976, 26,[181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190] NUMBER 2 (SEPTEMBER)

The effects of activity conditioned in random CS/US training on performance in autoshaping

“…North and Morton (1962) and Anger and Anger (1976) reported similar findings. It is possible that the extended exposure to the contingencies within each series contributed to this result.…”

The effects of a novel stimulus change on responding in extinction following fixed-ratio training

“…However, responding did not decrease systematically over repeated stimulus-change extinction sessions for any subject. A failure to find a decrease in responding over repeated extinctions has been reported previously (Anger ~ Anger, 1976) but is particularly surprising in the present study, where a stimulus change occurred only during extinction sessions. Since such a decrease might be expected based on discriminative functions of the stimulus, it is unlikely that pausing resulted solely from the discriminative function of the stimulus change.…”

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“…It has been noted that, when a response requirement is added to a schedule such that it significantly impacts the rate of reinforcement, then ratio strain is more likely to be obtained (Rider & D'Angelo, 1990). In a review of the literature, Anger and Anger (1976) noted that the chances of extinction also increase with repeated extinction/ conditioning episodes (see also Davenport, 1969), making the response/extinction problem especially likely to occur on an RI+ schedule. On such an RI+ schedule, response rates can vary within a session (see Cole, 1999;Reed et al 2003) to produce periods of higher rates of responding during which reinforcement is obtained, and periods of lower rate responding where reinforcement is not obtained.…”

“…On such an RI+ schedule, response rates can vary within a session (see Cole, 1999;Reed et al 2003) to produce periods of higher rates of responding during which reinforcement is obtained, and periods of lower rate responding where reinforcement is not obtained. This feature of RI+ schedules would produce apparent conditioning/ apparent extinction cycle within a session, making extinction more likely due to the repetitive nature of these cycles (see Anger & Anger, 1976). However, Franks and Lattal (1976) noted that extinguished behavior could be reinstated with the delivery of response-independent reinforcement.…”