title: Housing conditions affect rat responses to two types of ambiguity in a reward-reward discrimination cognitive bias task.
abstract: Decision-making under ambiguity in cognitive bias tasks is a promising new indicator of affective valence in animals. Rat studies support the hypothesis that animals in a negative affective state evaluate ambiguous cues negatively. Prior automated operant go/go judgement bias tasks have involved training rats that an auditory cue of one frequency predicts a Reward and a cue of a different frequency predicts a Punisher (RP task), and then measuring whether ambiguous cues of intermediate frequency are judged as predicting reward ('optimism') or punishment ('pessimism'). We investigated whether an automated Reward-Reward (RR) task yielded similar results to, and was faster to train than, RP tasks. We also introduced a new ambiguity test (simultaneous presentation of the two training cues) alongside the standard single ambiguous cue test. Half of the rats experienced an unpredictable housing treatment (UHT) designed to induce a negative state. Control rats were relatively 'pessimistic', whilst UHT rats were quicker, but no less accurate, in their responses in the RR test, and showed less anxiety-like behaviour in independent tests. A possible reason for these findings is that rats adapted to and were stimulated by UHT, whilst control rats in a predictable environment were more sensitive to novelty and change. Responses in the new ambiguity test correlated positively with those in single ambiguous cue tests, and may provide a measure of attention bias. The RR task was quicker to train than previous automated RP tasks. Together, they could be used to disentangle how reward and punishment processes underpin affect-induced cognitive biases.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Behavioural Biology, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford BS40 5DU, UK.
authors.forename: Richard M A
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.affiliation: Centre for Behavioural Biology, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford BS40 5DU, UK.
authors.forename: Elizabeth S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Paul
authors.affiliation: Centre for Behavioural Biology, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford BS40 5DU, UK.
authors.forename: Oliver H P
authors.initials: OH
authors.lastname: Burman
authors.affiliation: Centre for Behavioural Biology, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford BS40 5DU, UK.
authors.forename: William J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Browne
authors.affiliation: Centre for Behavioural Biology, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford BS40 5DU, UK. Electronic address: mike.mendl@bris.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mendl
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D015982:Bias; D001835:Body Weight; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005518:Food Preferences; D006799:Housing, Animal; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D009042:Motivation; D009043:Motor Activity; D051381:Rats; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012055:Reinforcement Schedule; D012201:Reward; D013395:Sucrose / Q000008:administration & dosage
chemical_list: D013395:Sucrose
keywords: Affect; Cognitive bias; Decision-making; Emotion; Pessimism; Rat
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