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SUPPRESSION OF ETHANOL‐REINFORCED LEVER PRESSING BY DELAYING FOOD AVAILABILITY
Author(s) -
Poling Alan,
Thompson Travis
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1977.28-271
Subject(s) - reinforcement , lever , liquid food , ethanol , liquid diet , food delivery , schedule , zoology , alcohol , toxicology , food science , food consumption , medicine , psychology , biology , computer science , social psychology , biochemistry , business , agricultural economics , engineering , economics , mechanical engineering , marketing , operating system
When food was initially available to rats under a fixed‐interval 26‐second schedule and each liquid‐reinforced lever press delayed food availability 8 seconds, suppression of liquid‐reinforced lever pressing and liquid consumption occurred when the liquid presented was 4, 8, 16, 32, and 0% ethanol. Suppression did not occur in yoked‐control animals, which received food coincidentally with experimental animals but were not directly exposed to the delay dependency. After exposure to the food schedule, each ethanol solution served as a reinforcer in the absence of food presentation. Delaying food availability for increasingly long periods (8 to 2048 seconds) suppressed ethanol‐reinforced lever pressing and consumption relative to baseline levels, with the maximum decrease being below the level maintained in the absence of food. However, degree of suppression did not increase monotonically with delay length. Liquid‐reinforced performance of yoked‐control animals indicated that suppression did not result from changes in the sequencing of food presentation alone.