hard · MCAT psych-soc
A researcher trains a rat to press a lever for food pellets on a schedule in which the first press after a variable, unpredictable amount of time (averaging 60 seconds) is rewarded. After training, the reward schedule is discontinued entirely (extinction begins). Compared to a second rat previously trained on a fixed-ratio 5 schedule (reward after exactly every 5th press), the first rat's lever-pressing behavior during extinction is best described as:
A researcher trains a rat to press a lever for food pellets on a schedule in which the first press after a variable, unpredictable amount of time (averaging 60 seconds) is rewarded. After training, the reward schedule is discontinued entirely (extinction begins). Compared to a second rat previously trained on a fixed-ratio 5 schedule (reward after exactly every 5th press), the first rat's lever-pressing behavior during extinction is best described as:
- More resistant to extinction, because the variable-interval schedule made reward delivery unpredictable and decoupled from a fixed count of responses.
- Less resistant to extinction, since interval schedules produce weaker associative strength than ratio schedules regardless of reward predictability.
- Equally resistant to extinction, since both schedules are examples of partial reinforcement and the partial-reinforcement effect is schedule-independent.
- More resistant to extinction, but only because variable-interval schedules generate a lower overall response rate than fixed-ratio schedules.
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