Female rats release a trapped cagemate following shaping of the door opening response: Opening latency when the restrainer was baited with food, was empty, or contained a cagemate

Blystad, Magnus Helgheim; Andersen, Danielle; Johansen, Espen Borgå

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0223039

Cited by 12 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…When food motivation was high (restricted access to food outside the session), however, rats clearly preferred food over social release (Conditions 1-3). This finding is consistent with the Hiura et al (2018) findings, showing strong and reliable preference for food over social release when food is restricted outside the session (see also Blystad et al, 2019). Taken as a whole, the presents results show that relative preference between social and food is not invariant, but rather, is subject to reward and motivational variables (food quantity and overall food access).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Most of the rats (17 of 23) learned to open the restraint after an average of about seven sessions. Subsequent studies have verified that rats will, under a variety of conditions, respond in ways that release a rat from a restraint (Ben-Ami Bartal et al, 2014;Silberberg et al, 2014;Sato et al, 2015;Schwartz et al, 2017;Hachiga et al, 2018;Hiura et al, 2018;Blystad et al, 2019;Vanderhooft et al, 2019). The basic effect is reliable, having been replicated across different procedures and laboratories, but its core mechanisms remain a matter of debate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats

et al. 2021

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Prior research has found that one rat will release a second rat from a restraint in the presence of food, thereby allowing that second rat access to food. Such behavior, clearly beneficial to the second rat and costly to the first, has been interpreted as altruistic. Because clear demonstrations of altruism in rats are rare, such findings deserve a careful look. The present study aimed to replicate this finding, but with more systematic methods to examine whether, and under what conditions, a rat might share food with its cagemate partner. Rats were given repeated choices between high-valued food (sucrose pellets) and 30-s social access to a familiar rat, with the (a) food size (number of food pellets per response), and (b) food motivation (extra-session access to food) varied across conditions. Rats responded consistently for both food and social interaction, but at different levels and with different sensitivity to the food-access manipulations. Food production and consumption was high when food motivation was also high (food restriction) but substantially lower when food motivation was low (unlimited food access). Social release occurred at moderate levels, unaffected by the food-based manipulations. When food was abundant and food motivation low, the rats chose food and social options about equally often, but sharing (food left unconsumed prior to social release) occurred at low levels across sessions and conditions. Even under conditions of low food motivation, sharing occurred on only 1% of the sharing opportunities. The results are therefore inconsistent with claims in the literature that rats are altruistically motivated to share food with other rats.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats

et al. 2021

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats

Wan¹,

Kirkman²,

Jensen³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Prior research has found that one rat will release a second rat from restraint in the presence of food, thereby allowing that second rat access to food. Such behavior, clearly beneficial to the second rat and costly to the first, has been interpreted as altruistic. Because clear demonstrations of altruism in rats are rare, such findings deserve a careful look. The present study aimed to replicate this finding, but with more systematic methods to examine whether, and under what conditions, a rat might share food with its cagemate partner. Rats were given repeated choices between high-valued food (sucrose pellets) and 30-s social access to a familiar rat, with the (a) food size (number of food pellets per response), and (b) food motivation (extra-session access to food) varied across conditions. Rats responded consistently for both food and social interaction, but at different levels and with different sensitivity to the food-access manipulations. Food production and consumption was high when food motivation was also high (food restriction) but substantially lower when food motivation was low (unlimited food access). Social release occurred at moderate levels, unaffected by the food-based manipulations. When food was abundant and food motivation low, the rats chose food and social options about equally often, but sharing (food left unconsumed prior to social release) occurred at low levels across sessions and conditions. Even under conditions of low food motivation, sharing occurred on only 1% of the sharing opportunities. The results are therefore inconsistent with claims in the literature that rats are altruistically motivated to share food with other rats.

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“…However, as with dogs, task ability may heavily constrain rescue behavior in rats. Indeed, when trained to open the apparatus in advance of testing, all rats released their trapped cage-mate within the first few trials [52]. Therefore, future studies in which dogs are trained to open the apparatus prior to testing are needed to facilitate further interspecific comparisons.…”

Section: Comparisons To Ratsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using a simultaneous choice paradigm, Ben-Ami Bartal et al [45] showed that rats may find the act of rescuing their cage-mates to be nearly as rewarding as retrieving food treats, and may choose to share food after rescuing cage mates. However, Blystad et al [52] found that rats waited longer to open the restrainer apparatus and did so less frequently for a trapped cage-mate than for food. In contrast, dogs were as likely to rescue their owner as to retrieve treats.…”

Section: Comparisons To Ratsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) release their trapped and distressed owners: Individual variation and evidence of emotional contagion

2020

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Domestic dogs have assisted humans for millennia. However, the extent to which these helpful behaviors are prosocially motivated remains unclear. To assess the propensity of pet dogs to actively rescue distressed humans without explicit training, this study tested whether sixty pet dogs would release their seemingly trapped owners from a large box. To examine the causal mechanisms that shaped this behavior, the readiness of each dog to open the box was tested in three conditions: 1) the owner sat in the box and called for help (distress test), 2) an experimenter placed high-value food rewards in the box (food test), and 3) the owner sat in the box and calmly read aloud (reading test). Dogs were as likely to release their distressed owner as to retrieve treats from inside the box, indicating that rescuing an owner may be a highly rewarding action for dogs. After accounting for opening ability, dogs released the owner more often when the owner called for help than when the owner read aloud calmly. In addition, opening latencies decreased with test number in the distress test but not the reading test. Thus, rescuing the owner could not be attributed solely to social facilitation, stimulus enhancement, or social contact-seeking behavior. Dogs displayed more stress behaviors in the distress test than in the reading test, and stress scores decreased with test number in the reading test but not in the distress test. This evidence of emotional contagion supports the hypothesis that rescuing the distressed owner was an empathetically-motivated prosocial behavior. Success in the food task and previous (inhome) experience opening objects were both strong predictors of releasing the owner. Thus, prosocial behavior tests for dogs should control for physical ability and previous experience.

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Female rats release a trapped cagemate following shaping of the door opening response: Opening latency when the restrainer was baited with food, was empty, or contained a cagemate

Cited by 12 publications

References 59 publications

Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats

Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats

Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats

Pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) release their trapped and distressed owners: Individual variation and evidence of emotional contagion

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