Winning Isn’t Everything: Rats Need Only Food Deprivation and Not Food Reward to Efficiently Traverse a Radial Arm Maze

The present study examined the assumption that immediate food reward is the critical determinant of efficient performance on the radial maze. Food-deprived and nondeprived rats were run on a large-platformed, S-arm radial maze that was either baited or unbaited. Food-deprived rats that were rewarded entered significantly more novel arms in their first eight choices than expected by chance, consistently ran to the ends of chosen arms, and increasingly chose adjacent arms over trials. Food-deprived rats that were unrewarded behaved in much the same way. In contrast, rats that were nondeprived and unrewarded did not choose novel arms at above chance levels, infrequently ran to the ends of chosen arms, and did not develop a consistent response strategy. Explanations of the development of organized behavior based on reinforcement, win-shift tendencies, or spontaneous alternation do not account for these results. Rats appear to have foraging strategies based on preorganized stimulus sensitivities and response dispositions that are readily engaged by food deprivation and result in efficient traversal of a radial maze even in the absence of food reward. o 1990 Academic