Effects of percentage of reinforcement in fear conditioning upon the acquisition of an instrumental response

Two experiments with rats were conducted to investigate the effects of partial reinforcement of the CER upon the subsequent acquisition of an instrumental response. In the first experiment, there were no reliable differences, whereas Experiment 2 indicated superior instrumental performance for Ss that had received partial reinforcement during the initial fear-conditioning phase. The heart-rate measures in Experiments were unrelated to the schedule of reinforcement and indicated that the heart rate CR is decelerative.