Resistance to extinction versus extinction as discrimination.

Area of Science:

• Behavioral psychology
• Animal behavior

Background:

• The traditional view of response strength measured by persistence in extinction was challenged by findings that intermittent reinforcement increases persistence.
• Discrimination theory posits that longer persistence under intermittent reinforcement is due to its similarity to extinction conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the anomaly where responding persists longer in richer components of a multiple schedule compared to leaner components.
• To test whether the inclusion of food/no-food discrimination training impacts extinction resistance in multiple schedules.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1 replicated previous findings on multiple schedules with unequal components.
• Experiment 2 modified the multiple-schedule procedure to include food/no-food discrimination training.

Main Results:

• Experiment 1 confirmed that responding persisted longer in the richer component of a multiple schedule.
• Experiment 2 demonstrated that with added food/no-food discrimination training, extinction resistance in multiple schedules contradicted behavioral momentum theory.
• The results of Experiment 2 aligned with discrimination theory.

Conclusions:

• The persistence of responding in extinction is not a direct measure of response strength.
• Discrimination training, particularly regarding food availability, is crucial for understanding resistance to extinction.
• Findings support discrimination theory over behavioral momentum theory when food/no-food discrimination is trained.