Competitive and Territorial Fighting: Two Types of Offense in the Rat
Experiment 3: Discussion Page 11

Title/Summary Page

Introduction
Page 1

Experiment 1:
Intro/Method

Pages 2-3

Experiment 1:
Results

Page 4

Experiment 1:
Discussion

Page 5

Experiment 2:
Intro/Method

Page 6

Experiment 2:
Results

Page 7

Experiment 2:
Discussion

Page 8

Experiment 3:
Intro/Methods

Page 9

Experiment 3:
Results

Page 10

Experiment 3:
Discussion

Page 11

General Discussion
Page 12

Figures 1-2-3
Pages 13-14-15

Tables 1-2-3
Pages 16-17-18

Acknowledgements and References
Page 19

The differential effects of food deprivation on competitive and territorial fighting suggest that either these types of fighting are controlled by two separate and discrete brain mechanisms, or else the effects of food deprivation take place at an early stage of the system, prior to that of the proposed offense motivational mechanism.

The effects of food deprivation may be exerted directly on mechanisms responsible for competitive and territorial fighting, or they may be indirect effects mediated by attention. Thus, for example, in the case of competitive fighting, deprivation may help to focus the animal's attention on the food hopper and the piece of food over which the two animals are competing. In the case of territorial fighting, on the other hand, it might serve as a distraction from the intruder. The overt behaviors that we observed during the study support the former but not the latter. In competitive fighting under high food deprivation the animals spent most of their time at the food hopper trying to eat the food pellet. However, in territorial fighting, we did not observe the resident rat spending time by the food hopper instead of investigating the intruder.

(End of section)

previous page
home page
next page