Wheel running in the rat induced by a fixed-time presentation of water

Abstract

Four female water-deprived albino rats were given free access to a running wheel and food in baseline sessions with water present for the first 375 sec of each daily 100-min session. In experimental sessions, water was presented intermittently according to a fixed-time (FT) 2-min schedule, which delivered water on a periodic basis independently of the rat's behavior, resulting in 50 7.5sec presentations of the water tube. Food consumption did not vary as a function of the experimental condition, whereas running increased for all Ss during the schedule conditions. Increases in running appeared to be the result of increases in both initiations of running and run-burst lengths. © 1974 Psychonomic Society, Inc.