Schedule-induced air licking in rats.

Abstract Food-deprived rats were given one 45-mg food pellet per minute during 90-min daily sessions, with water or an airstream available from a water tube. All rats developed the typical schedule-induced pattern of licking, and the rats with the airstream available licked about twice as much as those with water. Therefore schedule-induced polydipsia cannot be explained in terms of hypotheses which ascribe a crucial role to the mouth-wetting property of water.