Spontaneous pattern discrimination in the rat.

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Abstract
To discover if rats, motivated by "curiosity" alone, could spontaneously discriminate between two-dimensional patterns, 48 rats, about 90 days of age, were divided into exptl. and control groups. In Session A, both groups were presented with a striated pattern. In Session B, controls were presented with the same striated pattern, exptl. animals with an inverted triangle. Exploratory activity in relation to each pattern was recorded by means of 3 measures found to be reliable. Although the scores of control and exptl. groups did not differ significantly in Session A, in Session B those of the exptl. group were significantly greater. It was concluded that (a) "curiosity" offers sufficient motivation for rats to make simple form discriminations, and (b) rats without previous experience with two-dimensional white and black patterns can nevertheless discriminate between them without formal training.
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