Intermittent reinforcement in behaviour therapy

It is suggested that intermittent reinforcement may be of value in retarding the tendency towards relapse in aversion therapy. An experiment with rats was conducted to examine the effects of intermittent shocks in approach-avoidance conflict learning. Intermittent reinforcement was shown to produce marked resistance to extinction in this type of avoidance learning. In a field-investigation of conditioning treatment of enuresis, intermittent reinforcement was found not to retard acquisition unduly and to give promise of reducing the relapse rate. A longer follow-up period is required to permit a final evaluation of the procedure.