Involvement of the partial reinforcement procedure in reward training: Opening address

Abstract

The analysis of the course of reward training presented in early Konorski and Miller’s papers (1933, 1936) indicates that the appearance of active instrumental responses is related with the introduction of the partially reinforced, excitatory classically conditioned procedure. It is postulated that the mechanism underlying the effects of this procedure on the shaping of instrumental responses is similar to that proposed by Konorski (1967) for the effects of inhibitory classically conditioned stimuli on the performance of the instrumental response.