Comparison of one-way and shuttle-avoidance performance of gerbils and rats.

Compared the avoidance probability of 10 male and 10 female Long-Evans rats and an equal number of gerbils in a l-way and in a shuttle task. Rats in the shuttle task, especially males, had lower avoidance probabilities than gerbils possibly reflecting a species difference in the response hierarchy in the shuttle task. It is suggested that the lower avoidance probabilities of rats may be attributable to the displacement of the flight response by other species-specific defense reactions (SSDRs) induced by the impossibility in the shuttle task of physically escaping the site of noxious stimulation. The uniformity of gerbil avoidance probability across sex and task suggests that the impossibility of fleeing the location of noxious stimuli does not alter the hierarchy of SSDRs in the gerbil. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)