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Malnutrition and Behavior: the Performance Versus Learning Problem Revisited

Department of Psychology, University of North Dakota and United States Department of Agriculture, Science and Education Administration, Human Nutrition Laboratory, Grand Forks, ND 58202

At 100 days of age rats, whose dams suffered severe zinc deficiency and/or undernutrition throughout lactation, were tested in two learning tasks. One test was an original discrimination learning task and the other test was a more difficult reverse discrimination learning task. In the reverse learning test, performance differed significantly between rehabilitated malnourished rats and normal rats. Difference in motivation, and not learning ability, was the explanation for the differences in performance between the malnourished and normal rats.

KEY WORDS: • learning • motivation • performance • malnutrition • undernutrition • zinc deficiency

¹ To whom reprint requests should be sent at Department of Psychology, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202.

Manuscript received 10 January 1980.