A note on ‘stretched attention’, a behavioural element indicative of an approach-avoidance conflict in rats

Abstract

The behaviour of rats in a passive-avoidance test is described. Following the administration of painful electric footshocks the animals avoid the grid box by displaying overt flight behaviour (walking backwards and walking away) and stretched attention. The latter behaviour is followed either by approach or retreat. During stretched attention auditory stimulation is especially effective in producing flight behaviour. It is concluded that stretched attention is an ambivalent behaviour, indicating a behavioural conflict between exploratory (approach) and flight (avoidance) tendencies. The tension of the body and the absence of locomotion in high intensity stretched attention are taken as indications that, during the conflict, competition for the effectors takes place. The reversal of the orientation of flight evoked by auditory stimuli during stretched attention is best explained by assuming that a competition for the mechanisms of selective attention is also involved.