Date of Award
8-1995
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Dr. Lisa Baker
Second Advisor
Dr. Alan Poling
Third Advisor
Dr. Neil Kent
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Campus Only
Abstract
The effects of resetting and non-resetting fixed-ratio (FR) 20 schedules on accuracy, topography drift ( defined as the number of responses until switching from one lever to the other), rate, and sessions to criteria were examined across doses of cocaine in a two-lever drug-discrimination task. The subjects, male Sprague-Dawley rats, were trained to discriminate 10.0 mg/kg cocaine HCl from saline, then tested at 0.0, 1.25, 2.5, 5.0, and 10.0 mg/kg cocaine. Differences between groups on accuracy, topography drift, and sessions to criteria were small and not statistically significant. The resetting FR 20 group showed consistently higher rates across doses of cocaine than the non-resetting FR 20 group, but this effect was not statistically significant. That statistical significance was not shown between groups on this measure was possibly due to small sample sizes. A large and statistically significant effect was seen across doses on topography drift. This study was one of few attempts to examine the possible differential effects of schedule of reinforcement on drug-discrimination performance.
Recommended Citation
Roe, Daniel L., "A Drug Discrimination Task with Cocaine Using FR 20 Resetting and Non-Resetting Schedules of Reinforcement: A Methodological Comparison" (1995). Masters Theses. 3578.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3578