SCANNING BEHAVIOR OF RATS DURING EATING UNDER STRESSFUL NOISE

Behavioral ecological theories postulate that threatening environments should increase eating speed and vigilance during feeding. In the pre sent experiment, eating speed and scanning behavior during eating were measured in 36 rats in 5 consecutive test sessions under stressful no ise (95 dB white noise, n = 18) and control conditions (60 dB, n = 18) after the animals had been habituated to the test environment. Intens e noise induced an increase of scanning rate and earing speed. These e ffects are similar to those reported for novel and light environments. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.