Showing papers in "Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology in 1972"

Conditioned satiety in the rat.

Abstract: In 3 experiments with a total of 72 male albino Wistar or Sprague-Dawley rats, liquid or solid diets differing in carbohydrate or triglyceride content were presented 1 at a time to each S once or twice a day. For a given S, each caloric density consistently had a particular odor and/or taste. Results show the size of the feeding bout on the dilute nutrient became larger than that on the more concentrated nutrient after several pairs of presentations. This differentiation was at least partly controlled by the oral cues which had been paired with nutrient differences. Results were attributable to acquired differences in the development of feeding inhibition during the meal, and not to original or acquired differences in initial rate of feeding or in the preference for 1 diet over the other in 2 stimulus tests.

Conditioning of food aversions by injections of psychoactive drugs.

Abstract: Injected male Sprague-Dawley rats with various drugs or saline immediately after drinking milk for the 1st time. 1 wk. later Ss were again given access to the milk. Conditioned aversion to the milk was produced by moderate doses of scopolamine, scopolamine methyl nitrate, amphetamine, lorazepam, and chlorpromazine. Conditioned aversion was not obtained if scopolamine was injected 30 min. prior to milk drinking or more than 4 hr. afterward. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

"Configural" conditioning in discrete-trial bar pressing.

Abstract: Three experiments are reported comparing responses to stimulus compounds and to their elements. Experiment 1 found no loss in responding to the elements of a repeatedly reinforced stimulus compound. Experiments 2 and 3 explicitly trained a discrimination between a compound and its elements and found successful learning whether the compound or the elements were reinforced. Addition of an explicit stimulus common to the compound and its elements retarded, rather than facilitated, the discrimination. Replacement of one element in a compound by another of similar intensity and associative strength disrupted performance. These findings rule out a number of interpretations of "configuring," but permit an interpretation in terms of a unique stimulus element and limitations on the total associative strength of the compound. An elementary problem in the development of any theory of behavior is that of providing an account of the response to a stimulus complex in terms of the responses to the elements of that complex. If an organism exhibits a learned response to a stimulus compound, AB, how can we understand this response in terms of the learning to the individual elements, A and B? Most theories (e.g., Estes, 1950; Hull, 1943) assume that the response to the compound is some combination of the learning to the elements. Indeed, a common specific combination rule has been proposed: that the "associative strength" of the compound is simply the algebraic sum of the associative strength of the elements. Such combinatorial approaches have

Postingestive modulation of the sweetness preference gradient in the rat

Abstract: Preference for a solution of a particular sweetness is increased by its previous association with postingestive effects of 10% glucose or polysaccharide solutions. Sweetness acceptance is decreased by previous association with 25%-50% glucose solutions. Conditioning in these two directions simultaneously by continuous access to a choice of solutions can reverse the usual gradient of preference for the sweeter of two solutions. This reversal is initially facilitated, but after some days attenuated, by a high proportion of carbohydrate in the diet. The reversal extinguishes over a few days without reinforcement. Expression of the relative aversion to the sweeter solution is not dependent on immediately prior carbohydrate ingestion (unlike sickly taste in man). Such conditioned attractions and aversions may assist normal caloric regulation.

Satiety and behavioral caloric compensation following intragastric glucose loads in the rat.

Abstract: Administered glucose solutions intragastrically to male Sprague-Dawley albino rats having free access to food except during the 1st hr. after intubation. The distribution of meals after intubation indicated that effects of glucose both prolong satiety and contribute to its initiation, during the dark or the bright phase of the lighting cycle. From about 5 hr. after intubation and from the start of the 2nd meal, the net cumulative inhibition of food intake amounted to apparently close to exact caloric compensation for the glucose load. Feeding was not differentially inhibited by control loads of the same volume as the glucose load, whether the control was air, water, sodium chloride, urea, or 3-methylglucose. Results provide the 1st demonstration in support of a theory of short-term behavioral regulation according to an energostatic signal generated from glucose.

Evoked cortical potentials and measurement of human abilities.

Abstract: A consistent pattern of reliable correlations of the order of from -.15 to -.32 was found between measures of intelligence and measures of visual average evoked potential latency recorded from the frontoparietal scalp. Measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence correlated to about the same magnitude with evoked potential latency measures. There were significant correlations between measures representing simple cognitive processes (eg., motor-perceptual speed) and evoked potential latency. The average size of ability-latency correlations as well as the number of significant correlations increased as conditions of evoked potential testing which tend to impose alertness on subjects were relaxed.

Some characteristics of feeding during streptozotocin-induced diabetes in the rat.

Abstract: Injected 24 male Sprague-Dawley albino rats with a buffer solution or 25-45 or 50-60 mg/kg of streptozotocin. 4-9 days after 50-60 mg. of streptozotocin Ss showed abbreviated intermeal intervals. There was also a lack of proportionality in intermeal interval duration to size of the preceding meal. This result probably accounts for the hyperphagia which develops at 4-6 days and increases over 2 wk. Such effects were not seen in the lst 3 days, even though the Ss were glucosuric and polydipsic within 24 hr. of streptozotocin treatment. In contrast, decreases in basal feeding rate and in meal size did begin to develop in the 1st 3 days of diabetes. It is suggested that aversion to the diet develops immediately on insulin deficiency, but that the satiety deficits and hyperphagia in chronic diabetes are secondary to considerable changes in body composition.

Consequences of perinatal hormone manipulation on the adult sexual behavior of female rats.

Abstract: Consequences of perinatal hormone manipulation on the adult sexual b ehavior of female rats were investigated. The animals were injected wit h oil prenatal or prolonged postnatal testosterone propionate (TP) or cyproterone acetate (Cyp A). Prenatal TP decreased quality and rate of lordotic response. Postnatal TP also impaired female behavior but increased the complete male compulatory rate. Prenatal Cyp A reduced the copulatory rate (p less than .01) while prenatal TP increased it (p less than .05). Both prenatal and postnatal TP produced equally large ( p less than .05) increases in number of complete copulations. Rats receiving prenatal Cyp A showed marked reductions in the percentage of animals displaying complete copulations while those who received only po stnatal Cyp A were unaffected. These results suggest that gonadal stero id levels present during prenatal and postnatal developmental stages determine the direction and degree of differentiation of adult rat sexual behavior and that male behavior in normal females is based on pre natal androgenic modifications of the nervous system.