Transfer of Persistence to the Acquisition of a New Behaviour

Two experiments tested whether the degree of effort required for the reinforcement of one behaviour would affect the acquisition of a second behaviour. In the first experiment, rats were placed in a conditioning chamber and: (a) were required to press a lever for food pellets on a fixed ratio schedule, (b) received free presentation of the pellets, or (c) did not receive pellets. Next, all rats were rewarded for a new behaviour, round trips across the length of a runway. As predicted, the fixed-ratio group had the greatest shuttle rate. In the second experiment, two groups were required to press a lever, and the number of presses per pellet was varied. For two other groups not required to press the lever, the amount of food presented per approach to the feeder was varied. The greater required number of lever presses and the lesser number of pellets per approach to the feeder produced the higher subsequent shuttle rates. Two alternative explanations were compared: the degree of accustomed effort per reinforcer becomes a learned component of behaviour, or high effort increases the habituation of frustration-produced disruptive responses.