Persistence during extinction: Are judgments of persistence affected by contingency information?

The partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE), defined as increased be havioral persistence following intermittent reward, is considered an import ant outcome of instrumental learning contingencies, both inside and outside the laboratory. Since adults have a rich experience with situations in whi ch desired outcomes depend on instrumental responding, we asked whether tha t experience affects judgments of persistence when relevant contingency inf ormation is manipulated. Subjects read simple scenarios with information ab out behaviors generated by high vs. low reward rate, and then judged the re sultant persistence of these behaviors under no-reward conditions. Studies 1 and 2 found no evidence that persistence judgments were affected by conti ngency information in naive subjects. Studies 3 and 4 compared groups with and without explicit knowledge about behavioral psychology and thus tested possible effects of that knowledge for persistence more directly. Judgments in naive subjects were not reliably influenced by reward rate information, but subjects possessing expert knowledge demonstrated judgments that were reliably affected by contingency information. The results indicate that peo ple do not generate generalized knowledge from normal experience with occas ional vs. regular reward. Possible explanations and implications of these f indings are discussed.