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Rational rats

Nature Neuroscience volume 9, pages 472–474 (2006)Cite this article

Traditional learning theory suggests that animals do not understand that actions cause their consequences. A new paper uses sophisticated behavioral experiments to conclude that rats are capable of causal reasoning.

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Figure 1: Design of the experiments of Blaisdell and colleagues.

Ann Thomson

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK

    Nicola Clayton & Anthony Dickinson

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  1. Nicola Clayton
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  2. Anthony Dickinson
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Clayton, N., Dickinson, A. Rational rats. Nat Neurosci 9, 472–474 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0406-472

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