Date of Award
4-1973
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Psychology
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
This paper itself with the effect of prenatal stress on the learning ability of the offspring, parental emotionality on learning ability, and how these two factors interact. Female animals were categorized as either high or low emotional by measures in the open field and then further divided into shock or no-shock groups. This provided the stress condition. All females were stressed during pregnancy. Cross fostering and fostering techniques were used to provide more stringent control measures so as to be able to extrapolate prenatal influence from post natal artifacts. This resulted in a 2X2X3 analysis of variance matrix with error scores in a Successive Discrimination Reversal task as the dependent variable. Although no main effects were found to be significant, the interaction between emotionality and reversals approached significance at the .05 alpha level.
Recommended Citation
Kowall, Miles A., "Successive Discrimination Reversal Learning in the Rat Offspring as a Function of Maternal Stress during Gestation" (1973). Masters Theses. 2662.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/2662