Overtraining, extinction, and reversal learning by kittens

Abstract

Two groups of kittens received 0 or 112 overtraining trials after learning a brightness discrimination. Both groups underwent extinction of differential choice responses and then learned the reversed brightness discrimination. The overtrained and nonovertrained animals did not differ significantly in rate of reversal learning, and both groups showed a significant preference for the old positive stimulus when differential reinforcement was reinstated in reversal training. According to Sutherland and Mackintosh, these results show that kittens lack stable attention and should be inept in dealing with reversal and probability problems. This is not the case, raising doubts about the adequacy of their account of interspecies differences in learning by vertebrates. © 1975 Psychonomic Society, Inc.