title: Recognition of conspecific odors by laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus) does not show context specificity.
abstract: This experiment investigated how contextual cues affect recognition of conspecific odors in laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus). Rats received 5 encounters with the same odor in the same context. For the 6th test encounter, all rats received a simultaneous presentation of the original odor and a novel odor. The authors tested 1 group of rats (context same) in the same context as before. For the remaining 2 groups, the test encounter was in a different context that 1 group (context different) had experienced but that 1 group (context novel) had not. A significant preference to investigate the novel odor by context-same and context-different rats, but not by context-novel rats, suggests that odor recognition can occur following transfer to a different, but familiar, test context, indicating a lack of context specificity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford, England. oliver.burman@bristol.ac.uk
authors.forename: Oliver H P
authors.initials: OH
authors.lastname: Burman
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mendl
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology; D009812:Odorants; D051381:Rats; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior