کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
2426948 1553187 2013 11 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
An affordance analysis of unconditioned lever pressing in rats and hamsters
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم زیستی و بیوفناوری علوم کشاورزی و بیولوژیک علوم دامی و جانورشناسی
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
An affordance analysis of unconditioned lever pressing in rats and hamsters
چکیده انگلیسی

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of lever height on lever pressing that was not explicitly reinforced – i.e., operant-level responding. Two rodent species were used as subjects, rats (Experiment 1) and hamsters (Experiment 2), aiming to compare the behavioral support offered by one lever at various heights relative to the subjects’ body size. Results showed that lever height had a substantial effect on response rate. The rate of lever pressing varied similarly for rats and hamsters as a function of lever height, when lever height was re-scaled relative to body size. The distribution of inter-response times showed that lever pressing was organized in bouts separated by pauses. This pattern of responding was accurately described in both experiments by a mixture of two exponential distributions. These findings support an analysis of affordances in non-human species.


► Unconditioned lever pressing is described by a bi-exponential model.
► Unconditioned responding was organized in bouts separated by pauses.
► The lever height afforded different behaviors relative to subjects’ body structure.
► Affordances in operant settings are formalized by the bi-exponential model.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Behavioural Processes - Volume 92, January 2013, Pages 36–46
نویسندگان
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