Can rabbits tell humans apart?: Discrimination of individual humans and its implications for animal research

To predict when food reward was available, 12 New Zealand White rabbits wer e trained to discriminate between two humans. All subjects had significantl y higher response rates and greater behavioral arousal in the presence of t he positive stimulus person. The ability to discriminate between individual humans sets the stage for unanticipated Pavlovian conditioning, which may have considerable implications for animal research in behavioral and biomed ical settings.