Schedule-induced licking during multiple schedules

Abstract

Schedule-induced polydipsia was studied in rats bar pressing under two-component multiple schedules of food reinforcement. The first component of the multiple schedule was a variable-interval 1-min schedule throughout the experiment. The schedule comprising the second component was varied over blocks of sessions in terms of rate and magnitude of reinforcement, and was either variable-interval 3-min (one pellet), variable-interval 3-min (three pellets), variable-interval 1-min (one pellet), or extinction. Water intake per session varied with the rate of reinforcement in the schedule comprising the second component and was highest when the schedule was variable-interval 1-min. Both bar-pressing behavior and licking behavior showed behavioral interactions between the two components of the multiple schedules. With magnitude of reinforcement held constant, a matching relationship was observed between lick rate and reinforcement rate; the relative frequency of licks in the constant component matched the relative frequency of reinforcement in that component. Bar pressing, however, showed only a moderate degree of relativity matching. During the schedule-induced licking, a burst of licking followed each delivery of a pellet (post-prandial drinking). The duration of these bursts of licking was observed to be a function of the inter-reinforcement interval.