Abstract
Rats’ preferences among three qualitatively different food pellets (alfalfa, regular, and 93% sucrose) were determined by a free-choice and barpress procedure. In both situations, it was found that reward qualities can be ordered on an ordinal scale with sucrose most preferred, then regular, and finally alfalfa. The results raise the question of extending the vast literature which now exists on reward quantity to include reward quality.
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Boyer, W.N., Cross, H.A. & Anderson, C. Quality reward preference in the rat. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 3, 332–334 (1974). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333486
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333486