Reply: A note on the Roman and Tryon selected lines of rats

Abstract

We are pleased to learn that the Roman lines are readily available from Professor Broadhurst, and we appreciate his timely warning that the Maudsley lines are now extremely difficult to procure. We wish him success in restoring the vitality and availability of the Maudsley lines.As for the suggestion concerning the nomenclature of the Tryon lines, we are in agreement with the TMB and TMD designations, with the following stipulation. Some authors treat these lines as if they differed in "intelligence," but numerous experiments have shown that their differences are highly task specific and provide no evidence of general learning ability. TMB thus should be understood to mean "Tryon-maze bright," not "Tryon maze-bright." The Tryon selected lines differed substantially on the 17-unit maze which was used for the original selective breeding, but the line difference was greatly reduced or even reversed on other learning tasks (Wahlsten, 1972(Wahlsten, , 1978.