Drugs & Human Behavior 1 Practice Test

Intermittent reinforcement means rewarding the behavior only some of the time, not after every correct response. That’s exactly what this option describes: some, but not all, correct responses are rewarded. It captures the essence of partial reinforcement, where rewards are not guaranteed each time, which helps explain why learning can be more resistant to extinction.

For context, continuous reinforcement—rewarding every correct response—produces rapid learning but a quicker drop-off when rewards stop. Interval-based schedules reward based on time elapsed, and a fixed-ratio schedule rewards after a set number of responses; neither defines intermittent reinforcement as its central idea.