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
This apparatus has the following advantages. First, the electric-boxes,
between which the mouse is expected to discriminate by means of their
difference in brightness, are illuminated from above and the light
therefore does not shine directly from the lamps into the eyes of the
animal, as it approaches the entrances to the boxes. Choice is required,
therefore, between illuminated spaces instead of between two directly
illuminated surfaces. Second, the amount of illumination of each electric-
box can be accurately measured by the use of a photometer. Third, since
the same kind of lamp is used in each box, and further, since the lamps
may be interchanged at any time, discrimination by qualitative instead of
quantitative difference in illumination is excluded. And finally, fourth,
the tests can be made expeditiously, conveniently, and under such simple
conditions that there should be no considerable error of measurement or of
observation within the range of brightness which must be used.
It was my purpose in the experiment with this apparatus to ascertain how
great the difference in the illumination of the two electric-boxes must be
in order that the mouse should be able to choose the brighter of them.
This I attempted to do by fixing an incandescent lamp of a certain known
illuminating power at such a position in one compartment of the light-box
that the electric-box below it was illuminated by what I call a standard
value, and by moving the incandescent lamp in the other compartment of the
light-box until the illumination of the electric-box below it was just
sufficiently less than that of the standard to enable the dancer to
distinguish them, and thereby to choose the brighter one. The light which
was changed from series to series I shall call the _variable_, in contrast
with the _standard_, which was unchanged.
The tests, which were made in a dark-room under uniform conditions, were
given in series of fifty each; usually only one such series was given per
day, but sometimes one was given in the morning and another in the
afternoon of the same day. To prevent choice by position the lights were
reversed in position irregularly, first one, then the other, illuminating
the right electric-box. For the fifty tests of each initial series the
order of the changes in position was as follows: standard (brighter light)
on the _l_ (left), _l, r_ (right), _r, l, l, r, r, l, r, l, r, l, l, r, r,
l, l, r, r, l, l, l, r, r, r, l, r, l, r, r, r, l, l, l, r, r, r, l, l, r,
l, r, l, r, l, r, l, r, l_. Twenty-five times in fifty the standard light
illuminated the right electric-box, and the same number of times it
illuminated the left electric-box. When a second series was given under
the same conditions of illumination, a different order of change was
followed.
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