Behavioural Response to the Environmental Changes of Various Types in Lister-Hooded Male Rats

Abstract

The animal preference for complexity is most clearly demonstrated when the environmental change takes the form of an increase in complexity. Therefore, one of the potential difficulties in interpretation is that the preference for perceptual novelty may be confounded with the change in environmental complexity. In this study, the environmental complexity was controlled by manipulating with tunnels inside the experimental chamber. Adding new tunnels triggered a very profound change in behaviour, which was demonstrated by the animals’ prolonged stay in the proximity of the novel objects, sniffing, touching, and climbing on top of the tunnels. The removal of the tunnels from the test arena turned out to have the least influence on behaviour compared to the other manipulations used in this study. The reduction of complexity of the tunnels had a moderate effect on rat behavior. Tunnels are important elements in the rats’ environment, since they provide various possibilities for hiding, resting or moving inside the tunnel. They may be treated as a good example of affordances in rat-environment interactions. The results of this study may therefore serve as a basis for constructing a modified theory of animal curiosity which could incorporate the concept of ecological psychology.