hard · MCAT psych-soc
A researcher trains a rat to press a lever for a food pellet, delivered after a variable number of presses averaging 15. After acquisition, the reinforcer is discontinued entirely.
Compared to a second rat trained on a fixed-ratio-15 schedule and then also placed on extinction, the first rat's lever-pressing during extinction should show:
- Faster extinction, because variable-ratio reinforcement produces weaker response strength overall.
- Slower extinction, because the unpredictable reinforcement pattern makes the absence of reward harder to detect.
- Identical extinction rates, since both schedules averaged the same number of responses per reinforcer.
- Slower extinction, but only because variable-ratio schedules produce lower overall response rates during acquisition.
Sign up free to see the explanation and track your rank →
More MCAT psych-soc practice
- A child is rewarded with a sticker every time they finish th… — Which type of learning doe
- In a rural town, the local church provides both spiritual guidance and a community center
- A sociologist examines how the 'glass ceiling' prevents qual… — This study focuses on whic
- A researcher is interested in how the concept of 'the hero' is constructed in different cu
- A study explores how the meaning of 'motherhood' is negotiated between stay-at-home mother
- A researcher studies how members of a street gang use specific tattoos to tell the story o
- During a cognitive assessment, a psychologist reads a random… — This limitation is charact
- Which effect is most likely to be eliminated by the distractor task?