EFFECTS OF REINFORCEMENT FREQUENCY ON LEVER PRESSING FOR WATER IN FOOD-DEPRIVED RATS

Abstract

The effects of varying the frequency of water reinforcement for lever pressing were studied in food deprived rats. According to a factorial design, squads of three rats were exposed to a random-tíme 32, 128, or 256-s food presentation schedule. Concurrently, in successive conditions of 20 sessions each, lever pressing was reinforced with water on random-interval 8, 16, 32, 64, 128,256,512,1052, 2222-s schedules or extinguished. Corrected response rate decreased as water-reinforcement frequency decreased under the three durations of the food presentation schedule. These results suggest that schedule-induced drinking can be reduced to operant behavior, and are discussed in relation to studies on the interaction between food and water deprivation.