Do young guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) develop an attachment to inanimate objects?

Filial imprinting has been studied extensively in precocial birds. In these studies, inanimate objects were used as imprinting objects. Although attac hment to the parents is common in mammals, experiments with inanimate objec ts are rare and mostly restricted to guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus). The res ults of these studies are inconclusive. The aim of the present experiment w as to assess whether guinea pigs can develop an attachment to inanimate obj ects. For this purpose, 11 young guinea pig pups were taken from their moth ers within 16 h after birth, and subsequently reared individually in the pr esence of an inanimate object. Between 2 and 35 days of age, the pups were submitted to preference tests as well as separation tests. Neither test pro vided evidence of attachment during separation, the pups did not increase t heir distress calling; moreover, pups preferred a novel object to their rea ring object in the preference tests. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.