Deprivation and satiation: The interrelations between food and wheel running.
Food and wheel-running reinforcers trade off: hunger boosts work for exercise, and exercise cuts work for food.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Burgio et al. (1986) worked with rats to see if hunger changes how hard they work for exercise. They first kept food away for different lengths of time. Then they let the rats press a lever to earn time on a running wheel. Later, they flipped the test: they let some rats run first, then saw how hard the same rats worked for food pellets.
The team used a simple lever and a metal running wheel. Each press earned seconds of wheel time or one food pellet. They counted presses under each condition.
What they found
Hungry rats pressed more to get wheel time. The longer the food deprivation, the more presses they gave for a chance to run. When the rats had just finished running, they pressed less for food. One reinforcer filled the need for the other.
The results show that food and exercise reinforcers trade off. Depriving one makes the other more valuable.
How this fits with other research
Hart et al. (1974) saw the same wheel-running surge, but they used tight DRL schedules instead of hunger. Their rats ran more when lever presses had to be very slow. Both studies show wheel running can jump when something else is scarce—time in one case, food in the other.
Sailor (1971) found that sharp stimulus control blunts deprivation effects. Pigeons with clear red-green cues stayed steady even when food was reduced. D et al. extend that idea: if you control motivation across two reinforcers, the interaction gets stronger.
Ramer et al. (1977) showed only food pellets produce polydipsia; brain stimulation does not. Likewise, D et al. show the food–wheel link is special—not every response rises with deprivation.
Why it matters
When a client tires of one reinforcer, check the other reinforcers you control. Skipping snack time may boost interest in playground swings. Letting a child jump on a trampoline first might later cut her willingness to work for crackers. Plan sessions so deprivation and satiation work for you, not against you.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Two experiments were designed to assess whether depriving rats of food would increase the reinforcement effectiveness of wheel running (Experiment 1) and whether satiation for wheel running would decrease the reinforcement effectiveness of food (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, a progressive-ratio schedule was used to measure the reinforcement effectiveness of wheel running when rats were deprived or not deprived of food. Completion of a fixed number of lever presses released a brake on a running wheel for 60 s, and the response requirement was systematically increased until the rat stopped pressing or until 8 hr had elapsed. The ratio value reached (and the total number of lever presses) was an inverted-U function of food deprivation (percentage body weight). In Experiment 2, when wheel running preceded test sessions, fewer food-reinforced lever presses were maintained by the progressive-ratio schedule, and responding occurred at a lower rate on a variable-interval schedule. An interpretation of these results is that deprivation or satiation with respect to one event (such as food) alters the reinforcement effectiveness of a different event (such as access to wheel running).
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1986 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1986.46-199