Eliminating behavior with omission and extinction after varying amounts of training

Abstract

After rats were trained to leverpress for 1, 3, 9, or 27 days on a variable interval reinforcement schedule, omission training was compared with extinction in effectiveness of response elimination. Extinction produced faster response elimination than omission, although both procedures eventually led to equal response elimination. Resistance to response elimination increased with length of baseline training, although this effect did not interact with omission vs extinction. A test of the durability of elimination effects followed, using a response-independent variable time reinforcement schedule. After extinction, resumption of responding in the durability test increased with length of baseline training, but there was little response resumption following omission regardless of the length of the baseline training. These results amplify and extend previous findings which show omission to be an effective and durable response elimination method. © 1973 Psychonomic Society, Inc.