Partial reinforcement and instructional set in discrimination conditioning of the eyelid response.

Conducted a discrimination eyelid conditioning experiment with a total of 144 undergraduates in which either 50 or 100% of CS+ trials were reinforced under inhibitory, neutral, or facilitatory instructional sets. Variation in instructional set yielded receiver operating characteristic curves that indicated discrimination by the 100% reinforcement groups superior to that by the 50% groups during conditioning. However, the 50% groups displayed both superior resistance to extinction and superior discrimination in extinction. Discrimination declined during extinction under both reinforcement schedules. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)