Social Transmission of Food Preference

In this task, the subject is evaluated for the ability to learn about the safety of food from its conspecifics. Rodents are able to learn about potential food sources by sampling those sources on the breath of littermates. This task can be used to assess memory for the sampled food at various intervals.

Procedure

In this task, a demonstrator eats the cued food. The demonstrator subject is then allowed to interact with an observer subject. The observer subject is then tested for its preference of the cued food versus a novel food.