Foraging experience affects gerbils' (Meriones unguiculatus) radial arm maze performance.

Abstract

Gerbils, at weaning, were put in one of two environments-one in which the source of food and water was always located in the same place or one in which the source changed location from day to day-until they were 60 days of age. They then were tested in a 17-arm radial maze. Gerbils reared in the environment in which the location of food and water varied learned the maze task more quickly. These results are consistent with Olton's hypothesis that an animal's natural foraging behavior influences its ability to solve the radial arm maze task.The radial arm maze task (Olton, 1979;Olton & Samuelson, 1976) has proven to be a useful tool for studying animals' ability to remember spatial location information over short periods of time. The maze consists of a central area from which several identical arms radiate. The distal end of each arm contains a small well, baited with a piece of food. The hungry subject is allowed to choose freely among the arms. Animals capable of remembering and avoiding those arms that have been previously visited collect food more rapidly than animals that lack these abilities.Both the rat (Rattus norvegicus) and the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) easily learn the radial maze task (Olton & Samuelson, 1976;Wilkie & Slobin, 1983). Olton (e.g., 1978) suggested that this ability is a result of a natural "win-shift" foraging strategy, that is, a tendency for the animal to avoid recently visited food sites. This notion has generated a fair amount of criticism (e.g., Gaffan & Davies, 1981; Horner, 1984;Wilkie & Slobin, 1983) but remarkably little empirical data. One of the few relevant experiments-Olton and Schlosberg's (1978) demonstration that young rats learn "win-shift" easier than "win-stay" tasks-has been criticized for confounding task difficulty with the win versus stay conditions (Horner, 1984).An experiment that would provide a fairly powerful test of Olton's hypothesis has been suggested by Olton, Handelmann, and Walker (1981). The experiment involves putting young animals into one of two environments-a "stay" This research was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.Requests for reprints should be sent to Donald M.