Pre- and Post-Extinction Responding as A Function of Extinction Duration

Abstract

In a 3-bar Skinner box 4 hooded, male rats were trained on a VI 1-min. schedule for food reinforcement until stable behavior was observed. Then the effect of 5-, 10-, and 20-min. discriminative extinction periods was observed on VI responding 30 sec. before and 30 sec. after extinction. Consistently faster VI-response rates were found during the 30-sec. period after extinction at all three extinction durations. Results are interpreted as extending previous findings and imply that extinction duration is not a critical parameter for the development or strength of decreased responding immediately before or increased responding immediately after extinction. Implications for application of a similar paradigm to the study of behavioral contrast are discussed.

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