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An Extension Of The Reinforcement Contiguity Issue – The Effect Of Retention In The Goal Box After Reinforcement, Marilyn L. Grey

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This study investigated one prediction of Guthrie's theory of learning (1936, 1952)--that retention in the goal box after reinforcement increases the likelihood of incompatible responses to the goal stimuli and, thus, decreases learning. Three measures of learning were used: number of trials to criterion, total number of correct trials in the first twenty trials, and number of subjects who met criterion of five successive correct responses within forty trials.