Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING OF RATS

Operant Conditioning of Rats

Scott Kaluzny
Connecticut College

Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING OF RATS

Abstract
The current study explores the operant conditioning of rats through training a rat to move
towards a food well. One male rat (Rattus norwegicus) of the Sprauge-Dawley strain served as
the test subject, and was subjected to a conditioning trial. The subject was subjected to a
Skinner box conditioning trial, in which it was gradually conditioned to move towards a food
well through food rewards. The rat in the study was indeed conditioned to move towards the
food well through repetitive positive reinforcement through food.
Introduction
The original study on operant conditioning was written by B.F. Skinner (Skinner, 1948),
and examined the effect of operant conditioning on pigeons. Through the manipulation of food
rewards, Pigeons could be trained to perform a variety of acts that would otherwise be
considered irrational. The pigeons were similarly denied food prior to the experiment, and
through operant conditioning the response began as a sharp movement of the head from the
middle position to the left. This movement became more energetic, and eventually the whole
body of the bird turned in
Bouton and Schepers (Bouton & Schepers, 2014) found that the presence of punishment
in an alternate environment did not undo the effects of operant conditioning. In an ABA
pattern, subjects were subjected to reward in on situation, then punishment in another, then
reward in the original situation. Nevertheless, subjects continued to act in the original condition
in line with the rewarded operant conditioning.
Andrew McNamara(McNamara et. at., 2015) suggested that the operant conditioning of
rats could be achieved even when the reward was delayed. This suggests that operant

Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING OF RATS

conditioning plays a part even in higher level thought processes. Although the response was not
as obvious as in the direct response conditioning, it was still significant.
In this experiment, a rat will be exposed to operant conditioning through the use of a
clicker-food system. The author hypothesizes that the rat will learn to move towards the food
well once it realizes that doing so leads to a reward in the form of food.
Method
Participants
The subject of the experiment was a single rat of the Sprauge-Dawley strain. It was of
the male sex, and subjected to a restricted feeding schedule by which it had reduced in mass to
75% of it's original weight.
Procedure
One week before the experiment, the rat was exposed to the Skinner box for a period of
five minutes. The rat was observed without any data being collected. On the day of the
experiment, one pellet was placed in the food well, and the rat was placed in the Skinner box.
After the rat ate the pellet and moved it's head away from the food well, experimenters pressed
the remote push-button, releasing a food pellet. At this time they also started the timer.
When the rat moved it's head away from the food well, the timer was started again.
When it moved it's head towards the food well, the clicker was activated and a food pellet was
dispensed. Meanwhile, a recorder charted the different trials of the rat eating the food. This
process was continued until a block of ten arose in which the mean response latency was 2.0
seconds or less.
Materials

Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING OF RATS

The materials used were a stopwatch, a food pellet dispenser, and a skinner box. The
skinner box was a box with a cage floor and three plexiglass walls, as well as one metal wall.
The ceiling was a metal sheet with small holes in it to allow air for the inhabitant to breathe, and
the inside of the box had a lever and light.
Results
Response latency generally decreased between trial sets. The average response latency
for the first test was 23.33 seconds. It then increased to an average of 29.73 seconds for the
second set of ten trials, which was abnormal in the trials. However, it then decreased to an
average of 22.03 seconds for the third set of ten trials, and then 0.74 seconds for the fourth set of
ten trials. (See Figure 1).
Discussion
Operant conditioning is a lower level function that occurs in many different organisms. .
The study of operant conditioning has long focused on rats and other more simple creatures
because they are deemed to be naive organism (McNamara et. al., 2014) that lack the higher
mental processes present in humans and apes that could account for operant conditioning as a
higher level functioning.
Operant conditioning in the rat appears to satisfy the processes and definitions put forth
by B.F. Skinner (Skinner, 1948), who put forth the idea that that pigeons could be trained to
make oftentimes irrational movements by convincing them that doing so would satisfy their
hunger. He called it a superstition in the pigeons, making reference to the occurrence of
human superstition that appears to have no rational purpose or cause. However, in the case of
the rats, the movement towards the food well has been shown to precede the release of food, so
the rat does this as a learned survival behavior.

Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING OF RATS

Operant conditioning also takes place in human beings as an important part of the
learning process. Through this, humans can learn language, social customs, forms of art, and
other types of complex tasks. Animals, however, can also be taught through operant
conditioning, and more research should be done on the extent to which this phenomenon can be
used to benefit human beings. Guide dogs and other assistance animals, for instance, could be
taught to help human beings through similar processes.

Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING OF RATS

References
McNamara, A. A., Johnson, L. E., Tate, C., Chiang, T., & Byrne, T. (2015). Acquisition of
operant behavior in rats with delayed reinforcement: A retractable-lever procedure. Behavioural
Processes,11137-41. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2014.11.014
Trask, S., & Bouton, M. E. (2014). Contextual control of operant behavior: Evidence for
hierarchical associations in instrumental learning Learning & Behavior, 42(3), 281-288.
doi:10.3758/s13420-014-0145-y
Skinner, B. F. (1992). 'Superstition' in the pigeon. Journal Of Experimental Psychology:
General, 121(3), 273-274. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.121.3.273

Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING OF RATS

Figure 1