Spontaneous activity in the rat over a continuous 47-hr. period was investigated as a function of age, sex, food-water deprivation, illumination level, starting time, temperature, and experimental environment. A one-half replication (N = 192) of a complete factorial design was used. The results were in essential agreement with earlier work, with activity greatest for young, cool, high-deprivation Ss run in the activity wheel. on the basis of the 6 different recording devices used here, it was suggested that uninterrupted running may be more responsive to the momentary state of the organism than the number of discrete acts evoked by cage-type environments.
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