The Validity of Defecation as a Measure of Emotionality in the Rat

The present study employed a free operant discrimination procedure in studying the effects of frontal ablations in rats. Two groups of Ss were trained on a multiple fixed ratio (FR) 3 extinction schedule, and then the experimental group received frontal lesions. Following recovery they were returned to the multiple schedule. It was found that for the experimental group there was a significant loss in discrimination following frontal lesions. These results support a study done by Weiskrantz and Mishkin (8).