Drive reduction versus consummatory behavior as determinants of reinforcement.

Abstract

In a previous study (4) it was found that a solution of saccharin in water was an effective reward for instrumental learning despite its failure to provide nourishment or reduce hunger (1). The results were interpreted as indicating that elicitation of a strong consummatory response was a more critical feature of rewards than subsequent drive reduction. The purpose of the present research was to examine this interpretation further by comparing the reinforcing value of solutions in which nourishment, sweetness, and prior experience were varied independently. In one experiment, solutions of dextrose were used with and without the addition of saccharin to increase "artificially" the consummatory behavior. In a second experiment, animals were given prior experience with dextrose solutions to permit any reinforcing effects of nourishment to strengthen the consummatory response itself. The measure of strength of the consummatory response in both experiments was amount of solution ingested in 4-min. periods of confinement in a goal box; the measure of strength of the instrumental response was running speed in a runway that led to the goal box. EXPERIMENT I: REWARD VALUE OF DEXTROSE WITH AND WITHOUT ADDED SACCHARIN MethodSubjects and apparatus. The Ss were 24 male albino rats, about 100 days old and of the Sprague-Dawley strain from the Charles River Breeding Laboratories, Brookline, Massachusetts. The basic apparatus consisted of a modification of a 4-ft. runway described in detail elsewhere (5). Its essential features were a starting box with a hinged floor, a runway terminating in a short uphill hurdle, a goal box with a hinged floor, and guillotine doors at each box to prevent retracing. The weight of the animal on the two floors operated microswitches which controlled a Springfield Timer that measured the animal's response time from leaving the starting box to entering the goal box. The end of the

BRAIN STIMULATION AS A REINFORCER: INTERMITTENT SCHEDULES1

“…Their procedure, however, does not allow the multiple response feature in the first chain member, since a single response initiates the preset series of stimulations. and biologically arbitrary while consummatory activity may have special properties (Sheffield and Roby, 1950;Sheffield, Roby, and Campbell, 1954;Tinbergen, 1951).…”

Runway performance following changes in sucrose rewards

“…This is appealing for those theories which place heavy emphasis on the response elicitation properties of reinforcement (e.g., Sheffield, Roby & Campbell, 1954;Premack, 1959;Spence, 1956), but the correlations between licking rate and running speed, though of the moderate magnitude characteristic of these situations, do not account for a great percentage of the variance between Ss.…”

Novelty and partibility as determinants of hoarding in the albino rat

“…The possibility that this relation between hoarding and oral behavior reflects the organization of the neural substrate is suggested by the finding that oral responses and object retrieval are elicited by electrical stimulation in the same area of the hypothalamus (Woodworth, 1971). Also relevant in view of the relation between hoarding and rewards are demonstrations of a correspondence between reinforcing effects and differences in amount of oral behavior (Collier, 1962;Goodrich, 1960;Sheffield, Roby, & Campbell, 1954). Together, these findings suggest that the incentive factor has concomitant effects on hoarding and oral HOARDING INEDIBLE OBJECTS 553 responses as well as on oral and conditioned instrumental responses.…”