ASSESSMENT OF ATTACK AND DRINKING IN WHITE KING PIGEONS ON RESPONSE‐INDEPENDENT FOOD SCHEDULES¹

Abstract

Four White King pigeons in Experiment I were exposed to a fixed-time 90-second food schedule with successive access to water and a conspecific target. Drinking per session was sporadic and minimal, while attack per session occurred during most interfood intervals for all animals. Analysis of the temporal distribution of attack showed that the typical postreinforcement pattern of attack developed over the course of the experiment. In Experiment II, the same animals were exposed to a series of fixed-time schedules ranging from 30 to 360 seconds with successive access to water and target. Time engaged in drinking and the number of interfood intervals with drinking were less than that of attack. Food and no-food baselines, which have been typically used to assess schedules-induced drinking and attack, respectively, were used to evaluate the effect of the schedule on attack and water ingestion. Relative to the no-food baseline, both attack and drinking were enhanced by the schedule in all birds. Relative to the food baseline, drinking was slightly suppressed in three birds and attack was enhanced in all. For all animals, the food baseline resulted in more attack and drinking than the no-food baseline.

Organization of attack and other behaviors of White King pigeons exposed to intermittent water presentations

“…These results contrast sharply with the immediate postreinforcement pattern of attack that typically develops during exposure to intermittent food reinforcement (e.g., Yoburn & Cohen, 1979). As shown in the bottom panel of Figure 5, under conditions identical to those of this study (Yoburn et aI., 1981), maximum attack following food delivery consistently occurred during the first 15 sec following reinforcement.…”

“…In pigeons, schedule-induced attack does not always initially occur in the immediate postreinforcement period but can develop into that pattern over several sessions (Yoburn & Cohen, 1979). Similarly, attack can be displaced away from the immediate postreinforcement period by imposing a time-out immediately following reinforcement (DeWeese, 1977) or by making a target available only later in the interreinforcement interval (Muller & Cheney, Note 1).…”

Amphetamine increases schedule-induced drinking reduced by negative punishment procedures

“…The degree of polydipsia and other schedule-induced behavioural patterns is strongly determined by food reinforcement frequency (e.g. Falk 1966;Flory 1971;Brown and Flory 1972;Yoburn and Cohen 1979) and by the level of food deprivation (Falk 1969).…”

Concurrent drinking by pigeons on fixed-interval reinforcement schedules

“…The pigeon is the only non-mammalian species for which concurrent drinking has been examined [8,15,22,25,27] and, with one exception [22], schedule-induced polydipsia has not been obtained. The present study was conducted in order to describe the characteristics of concurrent drinking in pigeons exposed to FI reinforcement schedules, and to compare them with those of rats exhibiting schedule-induced polydipsia under similar reinforcement schedules.…”

“…Given such large differences between the parameters describing drinking in rats and in pigeons, it is not necessarily surprising that pigeons have generally failed to exhibit schedule-induced drinking [8,15,25,27]. The development of schedule-induced drinking in the pigeon may be restricted by limitations in kidney function [10] or by the degree to which drinking is associated with, or elicited by, eating [28].…”