Cole, Coll, and Schoenfeld developed a self-control paradigm in 1982, which is based upon refrainment from consumption during the presentation of a reinforcer. Their paradigm has been shown to be successful in training pigeons and rats to refrain from food consumption and rats to refrain from drinking. This experiment used Cole et al.'s procedure to explore another area of animal consumatory behavior, sexual behavior. Using a changing criterion design, 10 male rats were trained to refrain from approaching a sexually receptive female rat for up to 10 s. The training took place in a two compartment shuttle box apparatus. After the refrainment time elapsed the male rat was required to press a lever in order gain access to the female rat for one sexual intromission. The results were analyzed graphically and statistically. All 10 male rats successfully refrained for 10 s on 80% of the trials. This finding demonstrates that Cole et al.'s refrainment procedure is successful in establishing effective sexual refrainment and that sexual behavior can come under schedule control.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pacific.edu/oai:scholarlycommons.pacific.edu:uop_etds-3746 |
| Date | 01 January 1996 |
| Creators | Medlock, Michael Clyde |
| Publisher | Scholarly Commons |
| Source Sets | University of the Pacific |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations |
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