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
As I have suggested, the plan of experimentation may be criticised
adversely in the light of this irregularity in the error curve. Had the
conditions been perfectly satisfactory the curve would not have taken this
form. I admit this, but at the same time I am glad that I chose that
series of shifts in the position of the cardboards which, as it happens,
served to exhibit an important aspect of quantitative measures of the
modifiability of behavior that otherwise would not have been revealed. Our
mistakes in method often teach us more than our successes. I have taken
pains, therefore, to describe the unsatisfactory as well as the
satisfactory steps in my study of the dancer.
[Illustration: FIGURE 30.--Error curve plotted from the data given by
thirty dancers, of different ages and under different conditions of
training, in white-black discrimination tests.]
The form of the white-black discrimination curve of Figure 29 is more
surprising than disappointing to me, for I had anticipated many more
irregularities than appear. What I had expected, as the result of training
five or even ten pairs of mice, was the kind of curve which is presented,
for contrast with the one already discussed, in Figure 30. This also is an
error curve, but, unlike the previous one, it is based upon results which
were got from individuals of different ages which were trained according
to the following different methods. Ten of these individuals were given
two or five tests daily, ten were given ten tests daily, and ten were
given twenty tests daily. The form of the curve serves to call attention
to the importance of uniform conditions of training, in case the results
are to be used as accurate measures of the rapidity of learning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Dancing Mouse: A Study in Animal Behavior — 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