Animals permitted free access to a running wheel and drinking tube increased the amount of running when drinking was punished with electric shock. Additional experiments demonstrated that the simple presence or absence of a drinking tube (or running wheel) was a sufficient condition to observe a decrease or an increase in the alternative response. A quantitative analysis of these interactions observed between the incompatible running and drinking responses suggested that each response occupied a constant proportion of the time available for it. These results question an interpretation of the increase in unpunished alternative responding based upon its avoidance properties.
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