Extinction of an instrumental running response in rats in the absence of frustration and nonreinforcement

Trained 4 groups of 10 female albino Sprague-Dawley rats to run a straight alley for food reward. During Phase I reward magnitude was either 1 or 10 food pellets, and 1/2 of the Ss were food-deprived. During this phase only the deprived Ss exhibited increasing response speed. During Phase II all Ss were tested under "food satiation" with 10 pellets as reward. Those Ss originally trained while food-deprived initially ran faster in Phase II, but with continuing trials their speed declined toward that of nondeprived Ss. Results are interpreted in terms of the theories of K. Spence and A. Amsel, which imply that the present procedure should lead to the extinction of incentive motivation in the absence of frustration.