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Schwartz, L. P., Silberberg, A., Casey, A. H., Kearns, D. N., & Slotnick, B. (2017). Does a rat release a soaked conspecific due to empathy? Anim. Cogn., 20(2), 299–308.
Abstract: In Experiment 1, rats choosing in an E maze preferred to release a rat standing in a pool of water to dry ground over a rat already standing on dry ground. Five additional experiments showed that the choosing rat's preference for releasing the wet rat was maintained by two separable outcomes: (1) the social contact offered by the released rat and (2) the reinforcing value of proximity to a pool of water. These results call into question Sato et al.'s (Anim Cogn 18:1039-1047, 2015) claim to have demonstrated that a rat's releasing of a wet rat to dry ground is empathically motivated.
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Slotnick, B. (2001). Animal cognition and the rat olfactory system. Trends Cogn Sci, 5(5), 216–222.
Abstract: Is smell a 'primitive' sense used primarily to guide biologically basic behaviors or might it be the sensory modality that allows some species to express complex learning and other forms of cognitive behavior? Historically, the olfactory system has been considered primitive and it is not surprising that, until recently, cognitive neuroscientists have ignored odor-guided behavior. However, we now know that the olfactory system has projections to the prefrontal cortex, entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, and that these connections support the acquisition of simple and higher-order instrumental tasks, as well as a robust memory for odors. It appears that animals with a well-developed sense of smell have the neural machinery to think with their noses.
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