%0 Journal Article
%T The acquisition of lever-pressing by rats under degraded conditions of conditioned reinforcement
%A Karina A. Berm¨˛dez
%A Carlos A. Bruner
%J Acta Comportamentalia : Revista Latina de An¨˘lisis del Comportamiento
%D 2012
%I Universidad Veracruzana & Universidad Nacional Aut¨®noma de M¨¦xico (UNAM)
%X There are few studies on the acquisition of new responses under degraded conditions of conditioned reinforcement. In this investigation the establishment and subsequent maintenance of a new response was studied with 21 rats directly exposed to a constant random-interval 7.5 s schedule for a 1-s light stimulus for leverpressing. Concurrently, the same stimulus and one food pellet were delivered independently of responding across the entire 32-minute sessions on a fixed-time 64 s schedule. For three rats each the stimulus and the delivery of food were separated by intervals of either 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 s over consecutive blocks of 40 sessions. Although at low rates all rats lever-pressed even with intervals between the stimulus and food as long as 32 s. Response rates were progressively lower as the stimulus-food interval was lengthened, resembling a gradient of efficacy of conditioned reinforcement. Such finding is new to the literature on theacquisition of new responses with conditioned reinforcement.
%K acquisition
%K conditioned reinforcement
%K rats
%K lever-pressing
%K conditioned-primary reinforcement intervals
%U http://www.revistas.unam.mx/index.php/acom/article/view/33601