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AUTOMAINTENANCE IN GUINEA PIGS: EFFECTS OF FEEDING REGIMEN AND OMISSION TRAINING 1
Author(s) -
Poling Alan,
Poling Teresa
Publication year - 1978
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.1978.30-37
Subject(s) - lever , food delivery , reinforcement , guinea pig , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , feeding behavior , wheel running , adult male , communication , audiology , developmental psychology , medicine , zoology , social psychology , biology , cognitive psychology , physics , marketing , quantum mechanics , business
Behavior maintained by stimulus‐reinforcer pairings was examined. Guinea pigs maintained at 85 per cent of free‐feeding weights reliably contacted a retractable lever presented before delivery of a single piece of guinea‐pig chow or a 45‐milligram guinea‐pig pellet. When animals were given free access to one food and received the second food preceded by the lever, contact responses persisted. Such responses seldom occurred when a single food was freely available and was also delivered after lever presentation. Introduction of an omission training (negative automaintenance) procedure, in which lever contacts resulted in lever retraction and prevented food delivery, strongly reduced lever contacts. Observation indicated that mouthing the food cup, instead of the lever, became the prominent behavior during the prefood stimulus under the omission training procedure.