| Sumario: | Three food-deprived rats (80% of their free-feeding weights) developed schedule-induced drinking after being exposed to a multiple fixed-time schedule (FT 60-s FT 18-s) of food-pellet presentation. A 3-s signaled delay was then initiated by each lick, and the rate of licking was reduced to a much greater extent in the FT 18-s component in two rats. With these rats, a 9-s lick-dependent signaled delay then occurred in the FT 60-s component only, and a reduction was observed in licks per minute similar to that observed previously with the 3-s delay in the richer component. With the third rat the delays which were effective in reducing licking were 6 and 18 s in the FT 18-s and FT 60-s components, respectively. Measures of the percentage of interfood intervals with at least one lick produced less pronounced effects. These results suggest that the ratio between delay length and interfood interval length is critical for lick-dependent delays to be effective in punishing schedule-induced drinking. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
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