Exploratory Behavior Essay

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The Exploratory Behavior is the tendency to explore or investigate a novel environment. It is considered a motivation not clearly distinguishable from curiosity. The habituation process of exploratory activity causes a gradual decrease in the intensity of locomotor activity, which reflects the stage of the central nervous system. The observed changes in exploratory behaviour are strongly connected with alterations in particular brain areas. There are many other responses that show habituation over time. When rats are placed in an novel environment, they explore a lot. As the environment becomes more familiar, the frequency of exploratory behaviors diminishes.This decrease is not due to fatigue or inactivation of sensory mechanism, but it is …show more content…

The rats are developing Cognitive maps are mental representations of physical locations or environment. Habituation is defined as “the decrement in response following repeated stimulation with the same stimulus” and it is considered to be a basic form of learning.” Many experiments were done before this one. One similar to this one is “ A study of exploratory behavior as an index of spatial knowledge in hamsters “ This experiment investigated the role of exploration in the formation of maps of the a particular environment. The effects of spatial rearrangement of four familiar objects in an open field on subsequent exploratory behavior were studied in hamsters. During two exploratory sessions, four groups of subjects were exposed to objects in a particular spatial relation to each other and to a distal pattern. The reinvestigated objects whether they were displaced or nondisplaced support the hypothesis that, through exploration, a long-lasting representation of the environment is built up on the basis of the topological relations among and the objects, the overall geometric structure provided by the arrangement of the objects, and the relations between the objects and extra-apparatus landmarks. Another experiment done is “Short-term and long-term habituation of exploration in rats, hamsters and gerbils.” This Investigated short-term that was within-sessions and long-term that was between-session. The habituation of exploratory behavior in rats, hamsters, and gerbils, was also measured. The open field contained 4 different objects during 3 15-min sessions with an 8–24 hr interval between each session.The concept of dishabituation is also measured in this experiment and it is when the rats respond to an old stimulus as if it were new again. The results show that the 3 species differed from each other in both their

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