Differences in responding for sucrose and wheel-running reinforcement: Excitatory stimulus effects or inhibitory after-effects?

Abstract

Previous research showed that sucrose and wheel-running reinforcement of leverpressing generate different response rate asymptotes. To investigate the basis of this difference, the present study assessed the role of inhibitory after-effects and excitatory stimulus effects on measures of responding in rats exposed to fixed-interval schedules that randomly produced either sucrose or wheel-running reinforcers. Different discriminative stimuli were associated with each reinforcer type. Inhibitory aftereffects and excitatory stimulus effects were assessed by the pattern of postreinforcement pauses and local response rates across the four different combinations of previous and upcoming reinforcer types: wheel-wheel, wheel-sucrose, sucrose-wheel, and sucrose-sucrose. Results showed that, regardless of the prior type of reinforcer, response rates were higher and pauses were shorter in the presence of a stimulus signaling sucrose reinforcement. This suggests that differences in response rate asymptotes generated by these qualitatively different reinforcers may have more to do with differences in excitatory stimulus effects than with inhibitory after-effects.