ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to devote primarily to behavior induced by response-independent procedures, and to those aspects of response-contingent schedules that are not directly dependent on the response contingency. It is concerned with interim activities on schedules of positive reinforcement; that is, induced behaviors which occur at times when a reinforcer is unlikely to be delivered. The most striking thing about schedule-induced polydipsia is that the total amount of water drunk each day is so much greater than normal. Functions relating food-reinforcement rate to rate of pecking or lever pressing have for some years been a standard way of representing the effects of schedules on behavior. Drinking and other schedule-induced interim activities always seem to occur at times, or in the presence of stimuli, that signal the absence of food. Variability, internal feedback, and the possibility of competition at several levels, can obviously combine to produce sequences of behavior that defy analysis by means of simple experimental tests.
