The Dancing Mouse: A Study in Animal BehaviorYerkes, Robert Mearns
Science
The Dancing Mouse: A Study in Animal Behavior
Yerkes, Robert Mearns
Animal behavior; Dancing mice
An improvement on this method, which was suggested by Doctor Karl Waugh,
has been used by him in a study of the sense of vision in the common
mouse. It consisted in the introduction, at the middle of the experiment
box, of two wooden partitions which were pivoted on their mid-vertical
axes so that they could be placed in either of the positions indicated in
Figure 19. Let us suppose that a mouse to be tested for color vision in
this apparatus has been placed at _X_. In order to obtain food it must
pass through _A_ and choose either the orange or the blue box. If it
chooses the former, the test is recorded as correct; if it goes to the
blue box first, and then to the orange, it is counted an error. While the
animal is eating, the experimenter shifts the boxes to position 1 of
Figure 19, and at the same time moves the partitions so that they occupy
the position indicated by the dotted lines. The chief advantage of this
improvement in method is that the animal is forced to approach the color
boxes from a point midway between them, instead of following the sides of
the experiment box, as it is inclined to do, until it happens to come to
the food-box. This renders the test fairer, for presumably the animal has
an opportunity to see both boxes from _A_ and can make its choice at that
point of vantage.
Two males, A and B, of whose age I am ignorant, were each given seventeen
series of tests in the apparatus of Figure 18. A single series, consisting
of twenty choices, was given daily. Whether the animal chose correctly or
not, it was allowed to get food; that is, if it went first to the blue
box, thus furnishing the condition for a record of error, it was permitted
to pass on to the orange box and take a piece of "force." No attempt was
made to increase the animal's desire for food by starving it. Usually it
sought the food-box eagerly; when it would not do so, the series was
abandoned and work postponed. "Force" proved a very convenient form of
food in these tests. The mice are fond of it, and they quickly learned to
take a flake out of the box instead of trying to get into the box and sit
there eating, for when they attempted the latter they were promptly pushed
to one side by the experimenter and the box, as well as the food, was
removed to a new position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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