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
In concluding this discussion of the Weber's law experiment I wish to call
attention to the chief facts which have been revealed, and to make a
critical comment. In my opinion it is extremely important that the student
of animal behavior should note the fact that the dancer with which I
worked week after week in the Weber's law investigation gradually improved
in her ability to discriminate on the basis of brightness differences
until she was able to distinguish from one another two boxes whose
difference in illumination was less than one tenth[1] that of the brighter
box. At the beginning of the experiments a difference of one half did not
enable her to choose as certainly as did a difference of one tenth after
she had chosen several hundred times. Evidently we are prone to
underestimate the educability of our animal subjects.
[Footnote 1: Under the conditions of the experiment I was unable to
distinguish the electric-boxes when they differed by less than one
twentieth.]
The reason that the experiments were carried out with only one mouse must
now be apparent. It was a matter of time. The reader must not suppose that
my study of this subject is completed. It is merely well begun, and I
report it here in its unfinished state for the sake of the value of the
method which I have worked out, rather than for the purpose of presenting
the definite results which I obtained with No. 51.
The critical comment which I wish to make for the benefit of those who are
working on similar problems is this. The phosphor bronze wires, on the
bottom of the electric-boxes, by means of which an electric shock could be
given to the mouse when it chose the wrong box, are needless sources of
variability in the illumination of the boxes. They reflect the light into
the eyes of the mouse too strongly, and unless they are kept perfectly
clean and bright, serious inequalities of illumination appear. To avoid
these undesirable conditions I propose hereafter to use a box within a
box, so that the wires shall be hidden from the view of the animal as it
attempts to discriminate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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