ISSN : 1226-9654
This paper demonstrates that some behaviors that look like learned behavior may actually be a result of organism's hypothesis testing or curiosity rather than being reinforced by external rewards. Previously, alternation of behavior after receiving reward, as opposed to repetition of the rewarded behavior, has been often explained by curiosity or exploration. It was suggested in this paper that some behavior repeated after receiving reward too can be explained by the same mechanism. The implication of the finding for the well-known strong effect of partial reinforcement was discussed.
