Methamphetamine and time estimation.
- 1 January 1981
- journal article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes
- Vol. 7 (1) , 18-30
- https://doi.org/10.1037//0097-7403.7.1.18
Abstract
Three experiments were conducted to determine the effect of methamphetamine on the performance of rats in two timing tasks. When food sometimes followed the first response after T sec of a signal, the response rate increased to a peak near T sec and then declined. Methamphetamine decreased the time of the peak (Experiments 1 and 2). When one response (called a "short response") was reinforced following a short signal and a different response (a "long response") was reinforced following a long signal (where the short and long signals were 1 and 4, 2 and 8, or 4 and 16 sec), the probability of a long response increased as a function of signal duration. The point of indifference (50% long response) occurred near the geometric mean of the extreme durations, and methamphetamine decreased the point of indifference by about 10%. These results suggest that methamphetamine increases the speed of an internal clock used by rats in time discrimination tasks.Keywords
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