Instrumental and contingent saccharin licking in rats: Response deprivation and reinforcement

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Abstract

Instrumental licking of .4% saccharin solution was increased by the contingent opportunity to lick a less-preferred saccharin solution when the contingency schedule deprived the subject of the contingent response, but not otherwise. Schedules that imposed comparable amounts of response deprivation produced comparable increases in instrumental responding. The results support the hypothesis that instrumental responding will increase if and only if the contingency schedule deprives the subject of the contingent response. They also support the implication that the predicted increase will occur even if the contingent response has a lower operant level than the instrumental response.

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This research was supported in part by United States Public Health Service Grant No. MH-11470 to James Allison. The authors thank Margaret McKenzie and Kevin Cook for their assistance.

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