Modlinska Klaudia, Chrzanowska Anna, Pisula Wojciech
Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1 Jaracza St., Warsaw, Poland.
Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1 Jaracza St., Warsaw, Poland.
Behav Processes. 2019 Jul;164:78-85. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2019.04.015. Epub 2019 Apr 24.
Although the positive effect of environmental enrichment on animals' cognitive capacities is well-known, it remains unclear what role changeability plays in this context. Our study aims to analyse the impact of environmental changeability on the level of exploration and the rate of habituation to novelty. Prior to the experiment, the animals were housed in three settings: enriched stable conditions, enriched changing conditions and standard conditions. Environmental changeability was introduced by re-arranging objects in the housing pen. A test was conducted to measure the level of exploration in adult individuals. The study results suggest that rats housed in standard conditions exhibit a higher demand for interactions with the new environment. However, once novelty is introduced, rats from the enriched environments spend more time than their standard counterparts exploring the new objects. No significant differences have been observed in the behaviour of rats from the stable and changeable conditions. It may be concluded, therefore, that in a setting characterised by long-lasting environmental enrichment, the changeability of the environment plays no major role, at least with respect to exploration, general activity and the rate of habituation to novelty. It may be linked to the relatively quick extinguishment of behaviours reinforced by intrinsic reinforcement.
尽管环境丰富化对动物认知能力的积极影响已广为人知，但在此背景下，可变性所起的作用仍不明确。我们的研究旨在分析环境可变性对探索水平和对新奇事物的适应率的影响。在实验前，将动物饲养在三种环境中：丰富稳定环境、丰富变化环境和标准环境。通过在饲养围栏中重新布置物品来引入环境可变性。进行了一项测试以测量成年个体的探索水平。研究结果表明，饲养在标准环境中的大鼠对与新环境互动的需求更高。然而，一旦引入新奇事物，来自丰富环境的大鼠比处于标准环境的大鼠花费更多时间探索新物体。在稳定环境和可变环境中的大鼠行为未观察到显著差异。因此，可以得出结论，在以长期环境丰富化为特征的环境中，环境可变性至少在探索、一般活动和对新奇事物的适应率方面不起主要作用。这可能与内在强化所强化行为的相对快速消退有关。
