Abstract
Nondeprived rats were tested in an empty eight-arm radial maze. The rats persisted in visiting empty arms over a prolonged period (over 30 days). The rats entered the arms in a nonrandom pattern, a result that suggests that subjects remembered and avoided arms they had recently visited. These results, and others in the literature, suggest that sustained, nonrandom exploration of the environment is a basic behavior of rats.
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This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Michael Tan and Chee Siah Chang assisted with data collection. Rob Willson provided several helpful comments on the manuscript.
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Wilkie, D.M., Mumby, D.G., Needham, G. et al. Sustained arm visiting by nondeprived, nonrewarded rats in a radial maze. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 30, 314–316 (1992). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330477
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330477