Spontaneous Recovery

In Chapter 8, Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of an extinguished response following a rest period after extinction. An example the book uses is rats behavior with the lever pressing, the next day when the rat is placed back in the experimental chamber, it will probably commence lever pressing again. At this point, this rat is most likely not comprehending or forgetting that it does produce food. The best way to explain why this may occur, is said by Skinner who says proposed that spontaneous recovery is a function of discriminative stimuli associated with the start of the session. So to further explain the behavior of the rat, Skinner would say that the experience of being taken from the home cage, weighed and placed in an operant chamber is by itself a signal for food, so each time this happens the rat is thinking this time I may earn some food. Its it not until after this process is repeated and no food is presented when the rat may learn.  Video below: Rat Demonstr...