Rats are able to learn from experience and apply what they have learned to new situations, similar to the way toddlers learn language, new research from the United Kingdom suggests.

In a report in the March 28 edition of the journal Science, researchers at the University of Oxford report that rats were able to learn a simple, three-step audio or visual sequence and connect the pattern, associated with food, to a different setting.

New research from scientists in the United Kingdom suggests that rats are capable of abstract thought.
(Science)

"These experiments show that rats can learn simplified rules and apply these rules to novel stimuli," wrote the researchers. "Even if the cognitive mechanism that allows the rats' behaviour is found to be dissimilar to that found in humans, it does seem that both species have evolved means of solving similar information problems, in this case, the transfer of overall sequence relations."

Previous studies have suggested that infants, primates and birds are able to identify sequences, the researchers wrote in their report, but the question of whether animals other than humans are able to learn and apply rules has been contested.

Rat think

Robin Murphy, with Oxford's department of psychology, and colleagues first tested whether rats could learn to recognize sequences such as BAB or ABB, presented using either dark and bright light or high and low tones.

Splitting the rats into three groups, each group was provided with food during a certain sequence, but not others.

The researchers found that the rats were able to learn their cues and anticipate which sequences would result in food.

Then, expanding on the auditory sequences, the researchers tested whether the rats could apply the learned patterns to a different situation by changing the frequencies used in the sequence (while retaining the same patterns).

The study said that, judging from the number of times the rats searched the feed troughs, the animals seemed to be distinguishing the patterns based on the rules they had learned, even with the unfamiliar cues.

This, the researchers said, signalled that rats were able to learn that a sequence signals food, distinguish the sequences paired with food and then apply the knowledge of the sequences to different experiences.

"These experiments suggest that some rule-governed behaviour is present in rats and that well-understood principles of conditioning provide a perspective on what we think of as our most human of cognitive abilities," the researchers wrote.