Abstract
Hungry and satiated killer Long-Evans rats were exposed to two species of prey, mice and frogs. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the rats learned to discriminate between prey when attacks upon one of the prey were punished by electric shocks and attacks upon the alternative were not punished. Thus, killing of the “dangerous” prey was suppressed, while killing of the alternative, “safe” prey continued. However, in Experiment 2—in which the consequences of killing the prey differed in that one was allowed to be eaten following a kill but the other was not—no evidence of discriminative attack resulted. Hungry and satiated rats did not differ in their responsiveness toward prey as objects of attack, but hungry killers were more responsive to prey as food, thus demonstrating a dissociation of killing and eating control.
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This research was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree at Temple University.
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Posner, I., Miley, W.M. Discriminative control of interspecific killing in hungry and satiated rats. Animal Learning & Behavior 10, 141–144 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212261
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212261