Extinction in the presence of free food

Abstract

After pigeons were trained to peck a response disk for food reinforcement, responding was extinguished by withholding the food. During extinction training, freely available food was added to the chamber. Responding was found to extinguish rapidly in the presence of the free food. However, when the free food was removed, many more extinction responses were emitted until approximately the same total number of responses to extinction were emitted as by a control group that never experienced free food. Thus, free food temporarily suppressed responding in extinction; removing the free food caused responding to return to high strength. © 1972, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.