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Animals working for any one of a variety of positive reinforcers (food, water, brain-stimulation...) produce dramatic decrements in operant performance when challenged with dopamine antagonist neuroleptic drugs. This well-established fact has generated considerable research aimed at identifying the precise nature of the drug-induced behavioral impairment. The two most oft-cited hypotheses suggest that much of the reduction in operant responding can be accounted for by either an “anhedonic” or “motoric” consequence of dopamine antagonism. Several novel behavioral paradigms are described which were devised to more clearly elucidate both the motor and reward impairing qualities of neuroleptic agents. Motor performance was assessed in a food-reinforced task in which a computer-operated force-transducer was used to obtain detailed analyses of the biophysical properties of operant responding. These …