Stimulus and subject control of schedule-induced drinking.

Thompson et al. (1971) watched rats drink water while food arrived on a fixed schedule.

They changed meal size and started extinction to see when extra drinking appeared.

A lever let some rats turn the water off to test if that would stop the drinking.

Bigger meals made the rats drink more.

Drinking spiked the moment food stopped, then faded.

When rats could shut the water off, they did—until long empty gaps made drinking return.

Reid et al. (1987) later showed drinking does not keep rising with meal size; it peaks in the middle and then falls.

Reid et al. (1983) found the same meal-size lift but traced it to how food behaviors spread through the session, not to the food itself.

López‐Tolsa et al. (2026) flipped the story: after a short no-water phase, rats that still got the food schedule drank less, showing past water loss can suppress later adjunctive drinking.

Together the four papers say: large meals spark drinking, but history, timing and bout rules fine-tune the effect.

If you run reinforcement schedules with clients, watch for collateral behaviors like sipping or chewing right after big reinforcers or when reinforcement pauses.

Adjust reinforcer size, session length, or access to other items to keep these side behaviors at helpful, not harmful, levels.