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BURYING BY RATS IN RESPONSE TO AVERSIVE AND NONAVERSIVE STIMULI
Author(s) -
Poling Alan,
Cleary James,
Monaghan Michael
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1981.35-31
Subject(s) - taste , aversive stimulus , reinforcement , psychology , taste aversion , unconditioned stimulus , neuroscience , avoidance learning , communication , feeding behavior , escape response , classical conditioning , audiology , conditioning , biology , zoology , social psychology , medicine , mathematics , statistics
Previous investigations have shown that rats bury a variety of conditioned and unconditioned aversive stimuli. Such burying has been considered as a species‐typical defensive reaction. In the present studies, rats buried spouts filled with Tabasco sauce, or condensed milk to which a taste aversion was conditioned, but did not bury water‐filled spouts or spouts filled with a palatable novel food (apple juice) to which a taste aversion was not conditioned. However, in other experiments rats consistently and repeatedly buried Purina Rat Chow, Purina Rat Chow coated with quinine, and glass marbles. This indicates that a variety of stimuli, not all aversive or novel, evoke burying by rats. Whereas the behavior may reasonably be considered as a species‐typical defensive behavior in some situations, the wide range of conditions that occasion burying suggests that the behavior has no single biological function.