Individual Differences in Learning and Perseveration

Two groups of rats received training and testing in learning
situations designed to induce perseveration. One task involved discrimination
training on one bar of a two-bar Skinner box and a
subsequent shift of reinforcement to the opposite bar. The second
task was a maze-learning one in which the training route was blocked
after 40 trials at a point just before the entrance to the goal box.
Thereafter, access to the goal box was possible only through a shorter,
but not previously reinforced route. The third task involved escape
training through one door of a four-door shock compartment. After 40
trials, the training door was locked and S was permitted to escape
shock only through one of the three previously-locked doors. In each
of the three tasks, indices of initial learning and perseveration were
selected, and within-subject comparisons were made for both initial
learning and perseveration across tasks. Within each task there was
a comparison of the initial learning measures to those used to define
perseveration. Finally, one of the groups was given conditioning and
extinction sessions in a single-bar Skinner box. The extinction
measure was compared with perseveration measures in the other tasks.
Four hypotheses were stated. These were that between tasks perseverative
measures would be positively related; that between tasks
initial learning measures would be positively related; that within each
task initial learning and perseveration would be neeatively related;
and finally that extinction in the single-bar Skinner box would have a positive relationship to measures of perseveration in the other tasks.
Only the last two hypotheses were supported and this support was not
uncontradicted. Also~ in the case of the extinction-perseveration
comparisons, none of the supporting evidence reached significance at
the .05 level of confidence.