| Summary: | Sixteen Nerodia rhombifera were used in each of two experiments investigating operant conditioning of the tongue flicker response. A yoked pair design was utilized throughout phases of baseline, continuous reinforcement, partial reinforcement, and extinction. During partial reinforcement, one-half of the experimental animals were reinforced FR-4 and the other half were reinforced continuously. Control subjects were treated as were their experimental partners, with the exception of noncontingent reinforcement. Statistical comparisons between means for groups during the CRF phase, partial reinforcement phase, and extinction phase were nonsignificant. However, because some snakes in the experimental groups appeared to show increases in response rate during CRF and FR conditions, the possibility exists that modification of task parameters will produce positive results in future research.
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