Abstract
Animals housed in four environmental conditions-stimulus-enriched, motor-enriched, stimulus-deprived, and control-were tested for their preference in a choice situation in which they could obtain food pellets by barpressing or from a free dish. Results indicated that animals in the control and motor-enriched groups barpressed for more food than they took freely, while animals in both the stimulus-enriched and the stimulus-deprived groups preferred to freeload. Explanations of the seemingly paradoxical results are discussed in terms of differences in novelty between the housing environments and the testing situation.
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This research was supported by a grant from the University of Nevada to the first author.
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Tarte, R.D., Townsend, S.G. & Vernon, C.R. Housing environments and the barpressing vs freeloading phenomenon in rats. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 2, 69–71 (1973). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03327716
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03327716