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
1 Sept. 29 6 4 4 6
2 30 5 5 6 6
3 Oct. 1 3 7 4 6
4 2 5 5 3 7
5 3 3 7 5 5
6 4 6 4 5 5
7 5 5 5 5 5
8 6 -- -- 3 7
9 7 -- -- 6 4
10 8 -- -- 4 6
Averages 4.7 5.3 4.5 5.5
The account of my color vision experiments is finished. If it be objected
that other than visual conditions may account for whatever measure of
discriminating ability, apart from brightness discrimination, appears in
some of the series, the results of the series of Table 29, in which all
conceivable visual means of discrimination were purposely excluded, and
those of the several check tests which have been described from time to
time in the foregoing account, should furnish a satisfactory and definite
answer. I am satisfied that whatever discrimination occurred was due to
vision; whether we are justified in calling it color vision is quite
another question.
I conclude from my experimental study of vision that although the dancer
does not possess a color sense like ours, it probably discriminates the
colors of the red end of the spectrum from those of other regions by
difference in the stimulating value of light of different wave lengths,
that such specific stimulating value is radically different in nature from
the value of different wave lengths for the human eye, and that the red of
the spectrum has a very low stimulating value for the dancer. In the light
of these experiments we may safely conclude that many, if not most, of the
tests of color vision in animals which have been made heretofore by other
investigators have failed to touch the real problem because the
possibility of brightness discrimination was not excluded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account