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. 14 No. 13
AGE, 32 DAYS AGE, 32 DAYS
SERIES DATE RIGHT WRONG RIGHT WRONG
(WHITE) (BLACK) (WHITE) (BLACK)
1 May 13[1] 5 5 7 3
2 14 8 2 6 4
3 15 7 3 9 1
4 16 9 1 9 1
5 17 10 0 10 0
6 18 10 0 9 1
7 19 10 0 10 0
8 20 -- -- 10 0
9 21 -- -- 10 0
[Footnote 1: No preference tests were given.]
It is now necessary to justify the interpretation of these results as
evidence of brightness discrimination by proving that all other conditions
for choice except brightness difference may be excluded without
interfering with the animal's ability to select the right box. We shall
consider in order the possibility of discrimination by position, by odor,
and by texture and form of the cardboards.
The tendency which the dancer has in common with many, if not all, animals
to perform the same movement or follow the same path under uniform
conditions is an important source of error in many habit-formation
experiments. This tendency is evident even from casual observation of the
behavior of the dancer. The ease with which the habit of choosing the box
on the left or the box on the right is formed in comparison with that of
choosing the white box or the black box is strikingly shown by the
following experiment. Five mice were given one series of ten trials each
in the discrimination box of Figure 14 without the presence of cardboards
or of other means of visual discrimination. The electric shock was given
whenever the box on the left was entered. Thus without other guidance than
that of direction, for the boxes themselves were interchanged in position,
and, as was proved by additional tests, the animals were utterly unable to
tell one from the other, the mouse was required to choose the box on its
right. Only one of the five animals went to the box on the left after once
experiencing the electric shock. The results of the series are given in
Table 11.
TABLE 11
CHOICE BY POSITION
Choices of Choices of
Box on Right Box on Left
First mouse 9 1
Second mouse 8 2
Third mouse 9 1
Fourth mouse 9 1
Fifth mouse 9 1
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