60-Hz electric fields: Detection by female rats

Abstract

Female rats were trained to detect a vertical, 60‐Hz electric field using the same apparatus and procedure we used previously to study behavioral detection of the field by male rats. Each rat was trained individually to press a lever in the presence of the field and not to press in its absence. Correct detections occasionally produced a food pellet. The probability of detecting the field increased as field strength increased. The threshold of detection —ie, the field strength required for detections at a probability of 0.5 after correction for errors—varied among rats between 3 and 10 kV/m. Behavioral detection by female rats was indistinguishable from that by male rats.