Effects of reward amount and reward omission on short-term retention |
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| Authors: | William S Terry Brent J McSwain |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 28223, Charlotte, NC
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| Abstract: | A series of four experiments studied the retention of the response made on a just-preceding trial as a function of the presence, and amount, of food reward given on that trial. Rats were trained to alternate arm choices in a T-maze, and then were tested for alternation with 5- or 30-sec delays between runs. When the subjects had received prior experience with the reward amounts used in testing, larger rewards led to better retention than did small or no rewards. However, when reward omission first occurred during the test phase, it produced more alternation on the following trial than did reward presence. The results suggest that both reward amount and surprisingness determine short-term retention of responses paired with the rewards. |
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