Olfactory Learning Set in Two Varieties of Domestic Rat

Abstract

Based on the assumption that the greater the ecological validity of a laboratory procedure, the greater the likelihood of adequately assessing an organism's behavior, two varieties of domestic rats were subjected to a series of olfactory discrimination problems. The results indicate that rats can easily learn a two-element olfactory discrimination problem. With continued experience there was a progressive improvement in their ability to do so which was interpreted as evidence for learning set. A justifiable conclusion is that the appreciation of the behavioral complexities and capacities of infra-human organisms necessitates questioning them in the idiom of their stimulus environment.