The effect of a cue-light fading procedure on the subsequent noncued performance under a differential-reinforcement-of-Iow-rate schedule (DRL) of food reinforcement was determined for rats with septal lesions and normal rats. Following initial DRL-20 sec training. all animals were trained with a cued DRL schedule in which a light signaled the end of the required delay and the availability of reinforcement. Subsequently. for one-half of the animals. the cue light was abruptly discontinued; for the remainder of the subjects. the cue was gradually faded out over succeeding sessions. Septal animals. which had the cue gradually faded. were more efficient by the end of training than septal animals which had the light abruptly discontinued. Moreover. the former did not differ from normal controls. For septal animals in the Fade grouP. the relative frequency distributions of interresponse times (lRTs) were bimodal. a characteristic of normal animals;-.septal animals which had the cue abruptly terminated. displayed the unimodal distribution of IRTs which is a characteristic of septal animals on the DRL schedule. In summary. the cue-fading procedure completely eliminated the major differences in behavior between normal and septal rats typically observed on a DRL schedule of food reinforcement.It is well documented that septal animals perform less efficiently, i.e., they emit more responses per reinforcement (response/reinforcement ratio) than do normals on a differential-reinforcement-oflow-rate (DRL) schedule (Burkett & Bunnell, 1966;Ellen, Wilson, & Powell, 1964). A DRL schedule requires that the animal not respond for some minimum period of time. At the end of the required interval, a response will deliver the reinforcer; if the response is made before the required time has elapsed, reinforcement is not delivered and the clock is recycled. However, high response/ reinforcement ratios are not an invariant consequence of septal damage. A variety of techniques have been shown to attenuate the inefficiency of septal animals on a DRL schedule. For example, cued DRL (Aitken, 1974;Braggio & Ellen, 1976;Ellen & Butter, 1969) with a light as the cue signaling the end of the required delay has been used to decrease the response/reinforcement ratios. Providing the animal with a wooden block and cardboard to chew (Slonaker & Hothersall, 1972) has also produced more efficient septal performance on the DRL schedule. Braggio and Ellen (1974) press the lever was increased or decreased from a particular value as a function of time since the last response.Regardless of the technique used to reduce the response/reinforcement ratios of septal animals, the effectiveness of such procedures has been limited to the condition when the treatment was applied and did not carryover when the normal DRL procedure was reinstated. That is, performance reverted to the typical inefficient pattern when the additional stimuli were removed. Inasmuch as these response characteristics reappeared, Braggio and Ellen (1976) concluded that an inefficient perfor...
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