Extinction As Discrimination: the Molar View

The traditional molecular view of behavior explains extinction as the dissipation or inhibition of strength, formerly built up by contiguous reinforcement. In obstinate opposition to this explanation was the partial-reinforcement extinction effect: a partially reinforced response extinguishes more slowly than a continuously reinforced response. It suggests instead that extinction is discrimination. Four pigeons were exposed to daily sessions in which a variable period of food delivery, produced by pecking on a variable-interval schedule, was followed by extinction. The rate of food delivery was varied over a wide range across conditions. Varying the amount of food per delivery inversely with rate of delivery kept response rate from varying excessively. The results confirmed and extended the partial-reinforcement effect; persistence of pecking and time to extinction were inversely related to rate of obtaining food. The results support the molar view of extinction, not as loss of strength of a particular discrete response, but as a transition from one allocation of time among activities to another. Although molecular theories dismiss discrimination due to repeated training and extinction as an impurity or complication, repeated cycles of availability and privation are probably typical of the environment in which most vertebrate species evolved.