Effects of ordered and constant sucrose concentrations on nonreinforced performance.

Tombaugh, Tom N.; Marx, Melvin H.

doi:10.1037/h0022065

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…These data on initial 15-min exposure replicate 176 in part the results of Tombaugh & Marx (1965) and together with the results of Guttman (1953) lend support to the hypothesis that sucrose solutions have differential reinforcing properties for hungry and thirsty rats. The slower running speeds of a water-deprived group of rats for rewards of 400 licks of a 50% sucrose solution as compared to 400 licks of a 5% solution (Ison & Rosen, 1965) is also consonant with the present suggestion.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Sucrose incentive shifts in the Skinner box with thirsty rats

Rosen

Jacobs

1968

Psychon Sci

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Guttman (1953) has reported that hungry rats, exposed in a .skinner box to changing sucrose concentrations (4, 8,16, and 32%) responded in a monotonically increasing fashion to the increasing concentrations. Tombaugh & Marx (1965) reported that thirsty rats on the other hand yield a rather different function relating bar pressing and sucrose concentrations (4,8, 32, and 64%) with less response strength at 32 and 64% than at 4 or 8%. The former study presented the different concentrations in counterbalanced order. The latter study, however, used either increasing or decreasing modes of presentation. Ison & Rosen (1965) have reported that the performance of rats for sucrose rewards appears to interact somewhat with their motivational state (hunger or thirst). It was decided, therefore, to replicate the Guttman procedure using counterbalanced presentation with thirsty rats to determine the generality of the relationship between sucrose concentration and bar pressing. METHOD Subjects and ApparatusThe Ss were four male, albino rats of the Sprague-Dawley strain, approximately 102 days old at the start of the experiment, obtained from Holtzman suppliers, Madison, Wisconsin. The experimental test chambers were four Plexiglas cages which were 9 x 8 x 8 in. with a 2-in. x ~-in. bar protruding ~ in. into the chamber 4 in. from the top of the cage and 3 in. from the sides of the cage. Procedure Upon arrival Ss were marked, handled and assigned to individual cages. The Ss were maintained on ad lib Purina Chow. Water was removed from the individual cages 23 h before the beginning of each day of training and on the days preceeding the four experimental sessions. The Ss were magazine trained and put on a continuous reinforcement schedule with water as reinforcement for two weeks prior to the initial experimental session. Twenty-four hours before each test session four concentrations of sucrose (table sugar and water), 4%, 8%, 16%, and 32%, were prepared (gm/ml). Four orders of presentation of the concentrations were selected in a counterbalanced design. The orders were (a) 4%-160/0-320/0-8%, (b) 80/0-40/0-160/0-32%, (c) 160/0-320/0-80/0-4%, and (d) 320/0-80/0-40/0-16%. On the test days the S was placed in the test chamber for 15 min and permitted to bar press for the first solution of a given order. The S was then removed from the chamber and held for 5 min during which time the second solution in that order was substituted for the first and the dipper was cleaned. This procedure was carried out for the four concentrations. Each S received the four orders in different sequences across the four test days. Number of reinforcements obtained in each 15 min period was recorded. Each reinforcement was approximately .10 mt. The inter-testday interval ranged from two to seven days. Figure I shows the mean number of reinforcements obtained by the Ss at each sucrose concentration over the four IS-min intervals. Analysis of variance with IS-min intervals, orders of presentation, and solutions as within-S variables demonstrated that...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Sucrose incentive shifts in the Skinner box with thirsty rats

Rosen

Jacobs

1968

Psychon Sci

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“…The extinction results show that the frequently reported direct relationship between sucrose concentration and extinction performance (e.g., Barnes & Tombaugh, 1970;Likely, Little, & Macintosh, 1971;Tombaugh & Marx, 1965) occurs only when food deprivation is involved. When Ss were non-deprived or deprived of water, there were no pronounced differences in extinction performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

The interactive effects of type of deprivation and sucrose concentration on the acquisition and extinction performance in the rat.

Tombaugh¹

1974

Canadian Journal of Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologi

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In a discrete-operant bar-press situation, four types of deprivation (food, water, water-plus-food, and no deprivation) were combined factorially with four levels of reward (0%, 4%, 1635, and 64% sucrose concentration). In acquisition, water (0% sucrose) served as an effective reinforcer only when Ss were deprived of water alone. Higher sucrose concentrations tended to produce correspondingly higher levels of performance when food, water-plus-food, and no deprivation were used. No such differences were obtained with water deprivation. Resistance to extinction was an increasing function of sucrose concentration when Ss were deprived of food and waterplus-food. No differences were observed under the other two deprivation conditions. EXPERIMENTS WHICH HAVE EXAMINED THE PREFERENCE OF RATS in a choicesituation have shown that, regardless of the type of deprivation employed, rats tend to prefer higher concentrations of liquid sucrose. For example, Campbell (1958) andCollier, Vogel, Rega, and Young (1966) have demonstrated that the incentive value of sucrose is directly proportional to its concentration when Ss were food deprived, while Beck and Nash (1969) and Cohen and Tokieda (1972) have shown that the same relationship occurred with thirsty rats. In a non-choice situation there appears to be an interaction between the type of deprivation and level of sucrose. Under the conditions of food deprivation, acquisition and extinction performance have been shown to be an increasing function of sucrose concentration when possible confounding effects of satiation and consummatory variables have been controlled (Barnes & Tombaugh, 1970;Collier & Myers, 1961;McCloskey & Tombaugh, 1971). However, Beck (1963 reported that reinforced rates of responding tended to be the same across different concentrations of sucrose when water deprivation was used. Results from threshold studies further indicate that an interaction may exist between the effects of sucrose and type of deprivation employed. Food deprivation tends to lower the taste threshold while water depriva-

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“…This fact supports an interpretation of the differential nonreinforced response rates in terms of order, rather than merely terminal value (cf. Tombaugh & Marx, 1965), of incentives during reinforcement.…”

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confidence: 99%

Effects of ordered and constant sucrose concentrations on nonreinforced performance.

Cited by 8 publications

References 13 publications

Sucrose incentive shifts in the Skinner box with thirsty rats

Sucrose incentive shifts in the Skinner box with thirsty rats

The interactive effects of type of deprivation and sucrose concentration on the acquisition and extinction performance in the rat.

Nonreinforced responding as a function of the direction of a prior ordered incentive shift: A replication with fixed-interval reinforcement schedule.

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