Effects of Situational Complexity and Repeated Testing on Rats' Behaviour in a Light-dark Preference Situation
- 26 April 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Zeitschrift Fur Tierpsychologie
- Vol. 44 (2), 148-153
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1977.tb00989.x
Abstract
The hypothesis that the rats initial activity in a novel situation represents escape tendencies rather than exploratory behavior was tested. Male albino rats (30) were handled when 90 days old, another 30 rats remained undisturbed. All the animals were given 7 trials in a light-dark preference situation. For half of the animals the lighted part contained additional stimuli. Although activity was high, rats did not investigate these stimuli in the 1st trials. This result seems to favor the escape hypothesis.This publication has 9 references indexed in Scilit:
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