Social context-switch effects on the reacquisition of appetitive responses in rats

- Testing rats in the original social context produces a rapid reacquisition of instrumental responses.
- A slower reacquisition of instrumental performance is produced when rats receive extinction and test in the same social context.
- Rats shows faster recovery even when testing involves new social contexts.

It is widely accepted that the presence of one animal can influence what another learns. The present experimental series explored the role of social context in the retrieval of extinguished instrumental responses. A new experimental task with rats to study operant responses in groups was used. During acquisition, all rats were trained to approach the spout of a bottle to drink a sweet solution. Then, rats underwent extinction. Finally, a reacquisition test was conducted. A slow reacquisition was found when the social context of extinction and test were the same. However, when rats were tested in a social context different from extinction (using the same rats from acquisition or new ones) rapid reacquisition was observed. The present data suggests a parallelism between social and physical contexts.