Measurement of Emotional Reactivity and Association Ability of the Tsukuba Emotional Strains of Rats (Rattus norvegicus ) in Licking and Lever-Pressing Conditioned Suppression Situations

The emotional reactivity and association ability of the Tsukuba High Emotional (THE), the Tsukuba Low Emotional (TLE), and the Wistar-Imamichi (WI) strains of rats were studied in two experiments. Suppression of licking and lever pressing by unsignaled shocks were used to measure emotionality in Exp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of comparative psychology (1983) 1989-03, Vol.103 (1), p.100-108
Main Authors: Fujii, Masaya, Asada, Mitsuyo, Takata, Nanae, Yamano, Akira, Imada, Hiroshi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal
Animal behavior
Animal Emotionality
Animal Strain Differences
Associative Processes
Conditioned Suppression
Emotions
Rats
Rodents
Selective Breeding
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Summary:The emotional reactivity and association ability of the Tsukuba High Emotional (THE), the Tsukuba Low Emotional (TLE), and the Wistar-Imamichi (WI) strains of rats were studied in two experiments. Suppression of licking and lever pressing by unsignaled shocks were used to measure emotionality in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Contrary to our expectations, the WI rats, which had formed a part of the foundation population of the Tsukuba strains, proved to be the most emotional, and the THE and TLE did not differ in emotionality from each other in either experiment. Association ability was measured by the speed of discriminating dangerous and safe periods under matched levels of emotional arousal. Association ability proved to be best in TLE rats, especially in Experiment 2, in which, the procedures were somewhat improved on the basis of the results of Experiment 1. We discuss the results in terms of the motivational system and of the behavioral characteristics established during the course of selective breeding.
ISSN:0735-7036
1939-2087
DOI:10.1037/0735-7036.103.1.100