Abstract
A shaping procedure was used with wild wood rats to initiate leverpressing under a free-operant avoidance procedure. The wood rats eventually developed very effective avoidance, but much higher shock intensities were required than have been employed with domesticated rats to produce similar behavior. The wood rats did not display warm-up during avoidance, with shocks being rather evenly distributed over time.
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References
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Powell, R.W., Mantor, H. Shaping of free-operant avoidance in the wood rat. Neotoma floridana . Psychon Sci 20, 263–265 (1970). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329056
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329056