Utah State University.
SUNY Upstate Medical University.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2019 Nov;112(3):290-309. doi: 10.1002/jeab.557. Epub 2019 Nov 10.
The present experiments assessed whether resistance to extinction of pigeons' key pecking decreased across repeated extinction tests. An additional impetus for this research was to determine how the quantitative framework provided by behavioral momentum theory might be used to describe any such changes across tests. Pigeons pecked keys in two-component multiple schedules (one component associated with a higher reinforcer rate and the other with a lower rate) in which baseline and extinction conditions alternated. In Experiment 1, baseline and extinction conditions alternated every session, and, in Experiment 2, these conditions lasted for 10 and 7 sessions, respectively. Resistance to extinction decreased across successive extinction conditions in both experiments. Fits of the behavioral-momentum based model of extinction to the data returned uncertain results in Experiment 1 but implicated both generalization decrement and response-reinforcer contingency termination as the possible mechanisms responsible for behavior change in Experiment 2. Thus, these data suggest that experimental manipulations that affect discrimination of changes in reinforcement contingencies may influence resistance to extinction by modulating the disruptive impacts of removing reinforcers from the experimental context and of suspending response-reinforcer contingencies.
本实验评估了鸽子关键啄食行为在多次消退测试中是否会逐渐减少。这项研究的另一个动力是确定行为动量理论提供的定量框架如何用于描述跨测试的任何此类变化。鸽子在两个组件的多重时间表中啄键（一个组件与更高的强化率相关，另一个组件与更低的强化率相关），其中基线和消退条件交替。在实验 1 中，基线和消退条件每节交替，而在实验 2 中，这些条件分别持续 10 节和 7 节。在两项实验中，随着连续消退条件的变化，消退的抵抗力逐渐降低。基于行为动量的消退模型对数据的拟合在实验 1 中产生了不确定的结果，但暗示了泛化衰减和反应-强化关联终止是导致实验 2 中行为变化的可能机制。因此，这些数据表明，影响强化关联变化辨别力的实验操作可能通过调节从实验环境中去除强化物和暂停反应-强化关联的干扰影响来影响消退的抵抗力。
