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
NO. OF NO. OF FIRST NO. OF NO. OF FIRST
MOUSE CORRECT TEST MOUSE CORRECT TEST
2 11 29 15
30 33 49 34
50 49 57 15
52 22 59 15
58 16 215 10
60 17 415 10
76 3 75 8
78 6 77 11
86 5 87 9
88 25 85 11
AV. 18.7 AV. 13.8
The results of the experiments with this labyrinth as they are presented
in Table 39 indicate that its path is considerably more difficult for the
dancer to learn than that of labyrinth B, that the females learn more
quickly than the males, and finally, that individual differences are just
as marked as they were in the case of the simpler forms of labyrinth. It
therefore appears that increasing the complexity of a labyrinth does not,
as I had supposed it might, diminish the variability of the results.
Certain of the individual differences which appear in Table 39 are due,
however, to the fact that in some cases training in labyrinth B had
preceded training in labyrinth C, whereas in the other cases C was the
first labyrinth in which the animals were tested. But even this does not
serve to account for the wide divergence of the results given by No. 2 and
No. 50, for the latter had been trained in B previous to his training in
C, and the former had not been so trained. Yet, despite the advantage
which previous labyrinth experience gave No. 50, he did not learn the path
of C as well in fifty tests as No. 2 did in eleven. The facts concerning
the value of training in one form of labyrinth for the learning of
another, as they were revealed by these experiments, may more fittingly be
discussed in a later chapter in connection with the facts of memory and
re-learning.
[Illustration: FIGURE 28.--Plan of Labyrinth _D_, as reproduced from a
print made with a rubber stamp. _I_, entrance; _O_, exit; numerals 1 to
13, errors.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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