RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HABITUATION AND INTE LLIGENCE-TEST PERFORMANCE OF RATS

Work has been undertaken using 41 Wistar rats to test if habituation c orrelated with their performance in a task involving more complex lear ning. Habituation of the startle response to an irrelevant acoustic st imulus was measured in 90 trials over 3 sessions at 48 hour intervals while they performed the task of pressing a lever to obtain food. Thes e tasks were correlated with performance in ten different intelligence problems adapted for the Hebb and Williams rat maze (1946). The hypot hesis was that the better their performance in the intelligence test, the better and the faster would be their habituation. The results veri fied the hypothesis. Once the influence of previous learning and of pr essing the lever are eliminated, significant partial correlations appe ar, indicating that a better performance in the Test corresponds to lo wer overall reactivity and higher long-term habituation.