Between-trial transporting of animals: A methodological consideration

The advantages of the one-way avoidance situation are numerous. However, to start a. new trial, the E is confronted with the additional problem of transporting S, usually by hand, from the nonshock compartment to the shock compartment. Two experiments were run in which the performance of a group transported between trials by hand was compared with a group transported by a specially designed box. The main finding in both experiments was that between-trial handling of Ss markedly retards the number of responses occurring during extinction. The importance of removing the handling variable from experiments was discussed.