Control of the temporal locations of polydipsic licking in the rat.
Pellet-correlated stimuli, not thirst, time adjunctive drinking in rats.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bacon-Prue et al. (1980) watched rats drink water during a fixed-interval food schedule.
A feeder click and a short tone marked each pellet.
The team timed every lick to see if drinking clustered around these signals.
What they found
Most licks came right after the pellet sound, not after lever presses.
The noise of food worked like a cue that said, "Time to drink."
Even water-sated rats drank, so the cue, not thirst, drove the behavior.
How this fits with other research
Corfield-Sumner et al. (1977) first showed licking spikes after food delivery under second-order schedules. Bacon-Prue et al. (1980) zoomed in and mapped the exact seconds, proving the pellet sound is the cue.
Ramer et al. (1977) showed only food pellets produce polydipsia; brain stimulation does not. Bacon-Prue et al. (1980) add that once food is the reinforcer, its signal gains tight control over when licking happens.
Kodera et al. (1976) found brief stimuli can make rats pause then speed up lever pressing. Bacon-Prue et al. (1980) show the same logic applies to drinking: the pellet stimulus starts a short drinking burst.
Why it matters
The study reminds us that adjunctive behavior is not random. It follows cues linked to reinforcement. When you see excess drinking, mouthing, or other schedule-induced responses in a client, look for the stimulus that keeps setting it off. Changing the cue, its timing, or its predictive value may be the fastest way to bring that behavior under control.
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Join Free →Note the exact second a repetitive adjunctive response occurs and check what stimulus—click, light, or staff word—preceded it; test removing or shifting that cue.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
We studied the variables controlling the temporal location of polydipsic licking. Four rats were trained on a mixed fixed-ratio 10 (no tone) chained fixed-ratio 10 (no tone) fixed-ratio 90 (tone) schedule and on a multiple fixed-ratio 10 (tone) fixed ratio 100 (no tone) schedule. On the multiple schedule, drinking followed pellets if a fixed ratio 100 was upcoming for all four subjects and for two of the subjects if a fixed ratio 10 was upcoming. On the mixed schedule, drinking preceded the fixed-ratio 90 component of the chain. Two subjects also drank after pellet delivery on the mixed schedule before both the fixed ration 10 and the chain components. The number of licks was greater following a pellet than following a response. In a second phase with two of these subjects, the total response requirement of the chain was held constant at 100, while the size of the two ratios that constituted the chain was varied inversely. The tone signaled onset of the second link. Drinking followed the tone when it signaled fixed-ratio 90, 95, or 100 but not when it signaled fixed ratio 75, 80, or 85. These results show, on the one hand, that polydipsic licking is controlled by discriminative properties of the pellet rather than by its eliciting or "thirst-producing" characteristics. On the other hand, the fact that drinks were longer following a pellet than following a response suggests a contribution of thirst to polydipsia.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1980 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1980.33-119