Effect of feed-time duration on discrimination of vocalizations in a go/no-go operant paradigm

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Prateek K. Sahu, Carolina Montenegro, Connor T. Lambert, Alexandra Oprea, Moriah Deimeke, Victoria Rennie, Sarah Smeltz, Thomas J. Benowicz, Divya Patel, Leslie S. Phillmore, Christopher B. Sturdy

• Refining and modifying experimental procedures play a vital role in improving methodology while also reducing animal distress. In this study, we asked if an increase in feed time duration affects discrimination in an operant go/no-go task. Specifically, we used zebra finches’ sexually dimorphic distance calls as acoustic stimuli to test whether there were any significant differences in performance on an operant discrimination task requiring zebra finches to classify calls according to the sex of the producer when a key experimental parameter, feed time duration, was increased from 1 second to 2 seconds. We found no differences in learning speed (trials to criterion) between birds that were given 1 sec or 2 sec of food access following a correct go response. Our results indicate doubling food access duration did not impact the speed of acquisition of distance call discrimination in zebra finches. These findings suggest that we can provide twice as much time for zebra finches to access food, potentially improving animal welfare, with no impact on experimental outcomes.

• Date created

  2022-01-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Auditory discrimination; Distance calls; Experimental methodologies; Operant conditioning; Refinement of procedures; Zebra finch

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-rf03-a563

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International