Abstract
Adult hooded rats and gerbils were trained to criterion on a spatial discrimination in a T-maze, followed by 15 daily 10-trial reversals. Results indicated that both species improved significantly over the 15 reversals, but there was a reliable difference between species. Specifically, gerbils made slightly more errors than did rats. Gerbils also were observed to explore in the maze more than rats. Present and prior findings suggest that gerbils perform less well than domestic rats on appetitive learning tasks. Other findings suggest that they are as good or better than rats at active avoidance learning. One possibility is that the gerbil’s greater tendency to explore and/or their higher activity level interferes with performance on appetitive tasks but enhances performance in active avoidance learning.
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References
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This experiment was a Senior Honors Thesis under the direction of the junior author. Results were presented in abstract form at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, November, 1971, in St. Louis.
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Carey, M.A., Fischer, G.J. Spatial reversal learning in rats and gerbils. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 2, 173–174 (1973). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329239
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329239