Comparison of Pavlovian serial conditional discrimination in rats and hamsters in the same experimental situation

Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research

J.l.o. Bueno¹  T.h. Figueiredo¹  F.m.c. Mello¹ 

[1] ,Universidade de São Paulo Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto Departamento de Psicologia e EducaçãoRibeirão Preto SP ,Brasil

关键词: conditional discrimination;    hamsters;    Wistar rats;    behavior repertoire;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S0100-879X2001001200012

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

The present study compares behavioral changes between two distinct rodent groups, hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) and Wistar rats, when submitted in the same homogeneous experimental situations to a serial conditional discrimination procedure which involves water deprivation and the processing of temporal variables. Both hamsters and rats acquired serial positive conditional discrimination as indicated by higher frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior during the tone followed by reinforcement (T+) and preceded by the feature stimulus light (L) and during the empty interval, than during the tone alone not followed by reinforcement (T-). Rats' frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior were high during T+ and T-, initially during training, and decreased during T- as the training progressed. However, the hamsters' frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior started very low and increased only during T+ as the training progressed. Comparison of the frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior during the empty interval in relation to the frequencies during the preceding L period showed that rats' frequencies remained very high and hamsters' frequencies increased during training. These results suggest that rats and hamsters have different behavioral strategies for the acquisition of a conditional discrimination. The results of the comparisons made in these experiments support the view of the importance of an ecological psychology approach to the understanding of complex learning in animals.

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