One hypothesis advanced to account for hoarding behavior in rats has been the proposal that hoarding occurs when the animal regards the cage as a region of greater security than the food bin or the access pathways. Bindra selected 8 rats who showed low hoarding tendencies on preliminary tests and measured their hoarding activity in a closed-alley apparatus and in an open-pathway apparatus. The latter represented a situation of lower security than the former as judged by the time consumed in entering the two situations. The results showed significantly more hoarding in the "insecure" situation. The author concludes "that a rat will transport a particular material to its cage if (1) that material is valuable to the rat, and (2) there is a certain optimum difference in the security offered by the cage and the security offered by the place where the material is to be found." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)