To determine whether acquisition of an avoidance response with a trace conditioning procedure in the Skinner box could be facilitated by the use of long CS-US intervals, three groups of six rats each were trained at CS-US intervals of either 5, 20, or 60 sec. The CS was presented for 1 sec. unless it was ended beforehand by a lever press. The 5-sec. CS-US interval group made fewer avoidance responses and terminated the 1-sec. CS less often than each of the other groups. It was suggested that the differences in performance were due to initial differences in opportunity for making the appropriate response.
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