Partial reinforcement increases resistance to extinction of operant task in mice trained with a clicker

Learning skills are very important in terms of animal chance of survival in nature. Results of training of kept animals and studies on their learning can enlarge our understanding of their skills. The clicker training is a popular form of training of many animal species, consisting of associating a neutral stimulus (a click) with a reward. In our paper we examined if the used reinforcement scheme has an influence on the extinction of learned behaviour. Forty female house mice Mus musculus were divided into 2 groups of 20 subjects towards which two separate rewarding schemes were used. For completing a learned activity, the mice from the A group received a reward after each click (continuous reinforcement), and the mice from the B group only after the second or the third click (partial reinforcement). Afterwards, at the extinction phase the mice were receiving none reinforcement. Our results showed that the mice which were given only partial reinforcement were more resistant to the extinction of learned behaviour, i. e. performed significantly more attempts to obtain a reward.