Short-term retention of location within a homogeneous behavior sequence in rats

Fed 8 male Sprague-Dawley rats for entering a food tray following 12 or more consecutive lever presses. Short-term retention of location within the 12-press requirement was then tested by interrupting the press sequence with time-outs (TOs) after various numbers of presses. Each sequence contained 1 TO, and the duration of the TO was varied (0-16 sec) across phases of the experiment. As TO duration increased, the number of presses per trial …