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
To test the value of my supposition, I made additional experiments with
the 20 standard, the results of which appear under the dates June 2 and 3
of the table. These results indicate quite definitely that the animal had
been, and still was, improving in her ability to discriminate. For instead
of requiring a difference of about one half in order that she might
distinguish the 20 standard from the variable light she was now able to
discriminate with only 22 per cent of errors when the difference was one
tenth.
As it seemed most improbable that improvement by training should continue
much longer, I next gave additional tests with the 80 standard. Again a
difference of one tenth was sufficient for accurate discrimination (18 per
cent of errors). These series were followed immediately by further tests
with the 5 standard. As the results indicated greater ease of
discrimination with a difference of one tenth in the case of this standard
than in the case of either of the others I was at first uncertain whether
the results which I have tabulated under the dates June 3, 4, and 5 of the
table should be interpreted in terms of Weber's law.
Up to this point the experiments had definitely established two facts:
that the dancer's ability to discriminate by means of brightness
differences improves with training for a much longer period and to a far
greater extent than I had supposed it would; and that a difference of one
tenth is sufficient to enable the animal to distinguish two lights in the
case of the three standard values, 5, 20, and 80 hefners. The question
remains, is this satisfactory evidence that Weber's law holds with respect
to the brightness vision of the dancer, or do the results indicate rather,
that this difference is more readily detected in the case of 5 as a
standard (12 per cent error) than in the case of 20 as a standard (22 per
cent error)?
For the purpose of settling this point I made tests for each of the three
standards with a difference of only one fifteenth. In no instance did I
obtain the least evidence of ability to discriminate. These final tests,
in addition to establishing the fact that the limit of discrimination for
No. 51, after she had been subjected to about two thousand tests, lay
between one tenth and one fifteenth, proved to my satisfaction, when taken
in connection with the results already discussed, that Weber's law does
hold for the brightness vision of the dancer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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