Search

The selective attention and stimulus generalization interpretations of the easy-to-hard effect were tested by training one group of rats on an easy brightness discrimination and “reversing” them on a more difficult brightness discrimination. A control group, initially trained on the difficult discrimination, was reversed at the same time as the experimental group. The experimental group learned the reversal more rapidly and this was interpreted as supporting the selective attention interpretation.

In order to test an interpretation of the overlearning reversal effect, 2 groups of rats were given acquisition and reversal training on a simultaneous discrimination using 50% or 100% reinforcement. No difference in position responding was observed during reversal, and this result was construed as disconfirming the hypothesis.

Two experiments using rats were carried out in which it was shown that a quadratic function can best describe the relation between amount of initial discrimination training and speed of reversal learning for both a difficult visual and an easy spatial task. The results are used to explain the rarity of the over learning reversal effect (ORE) using easy tasks such as position discriminations. Implications for the attention theory are also discussed.