The role of R-S1 expectancy in discrimination and discrimination reversal learning

Four experiments assessed the role of response-reinforcement (R-S¹) expectancy as rats either learned a discrimination or a discrimination reversal. Experiment 1 showed that the higher the percentage of reinforcement during nondiscriminative pretraining the more quickly a subsequent discrimination is learned. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the overlearning reversal effect (ORE) can be obtained even though the overtraining phase consists of responses to a single neutral card. In Experiment 3 subjects were again overtrained on a single neutral stimulus under conditions of varying reinforcement. ORE was apparent under reinforcement of a high percentage of responses but was not apparent under reinforcement of a low percentage. Experiment 4 revealed that the fewer errors a subject makes prior to reversal the better its reversal performance is. Results of these studies were discussed in terms of generalized attention theories and the expectancy notions of Bolles (Psychological Review, 1972, 79(5), 394–409.