be weakened and ultimately disappear. Learning shows resistance to extinction . It means that even though the learned response is now not reinforced, it would continue to occur for sometime. However, with increasing number of trials without reinforcement, the response strength gradually diminishes and ultimately it stops occurring.
How long a learned response shows resistance to extinction depends on a number of factors. It has been found that with increasing number of reinforced trials resistance to extinction increases and learned response reaches its highest level. At this level performance gets stabilised. After that the number of trials do not make a difference in It is an interesting phenomenon, which is a result of an interaction between the two forms of conditioning.
Learned helplessness underlies psychological cases of depression. Seligman and Maier demonstrated this phenomenon in a study on dogs. First, they subjected dogs to sound (CS) and electric shock (US) using classical conditioning procedure. The animal had no scope to escape or avoid the shock.
This pairing was repeated a number of times. Then the dogs were subjected to shock in an operant conditioning procedure. The dogs could escape the shock by pressing their heads against the wall. After having experienced inescapable shock in the Pavlovian contingency, the dog failed to escape or avoid shock in the operant conditioning procedure.