Stimulus control and function of arm and wall travel by rats on a radial arm floor maze

Hoffman, Timberlake, Leffel, and Gent (1999) concluded that the tactic of e ffective trail following (in the form of arm and wall travel), rather than distance minimizing, central-place search, or random search, best character ized the locomotion of rats on a radial arm maze placed flat on the floor o f an arena (a floor RAM). The present experiments analyzed further the stim ulus control and function of arm and wall travel Experiment 1 showed that a rm travel was controlled more by the edge of a maze arm than by its surface . Experiment 2 showed that rats with whiskers clipped on one side traveled along arms less and along walls more than did intact rats. Experiment 3 sho wed that maze arms increased search effectiveness and decreased suppression of locomotion by bright light and a novel environment. The results support the hypothesis that arm and wall travel are based on mechanisms of trail f ollowing, which, in natural settings, contribute to food finding and regula tion of social relations and fear.