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
When an individual runs directly to the entrance of the right box, and,
after stopping for an instant to examine it, enters, the choice may be
described as recognition of the right box. I call it choice by affirmation
because the act of the animal is equivalent to the judgment--"this is it."
If instead it runs directly to the wrong box, and, after examining it,
turns to the other box and enters without pause for examination, its
behavior may be described as recognition of the wrong box. This I call
choice by negation because the act seems equivalent to the judgment--"this
is not it." Further, it seems to imply the judgment--"therefore the other
is it." In the light of this fact, this type of choice might appropriately
be called choice by exclusion. Finally, when the mouse runs first to one
box and then to the other, and repeats this anywhere from one to fifty
times, the choice may be described as comparison of the boxes; therefore,
I call it choice by comparison. Certain individuals choose first by
comparison, and later almost uniformly by affirmation and negation.
Whenever the conditions are difficult to discriminate, choice by
comparison occurs most frequently and persistently. If, however, the
conditions happen to be absolutely indiscriminable, as was true, for
example, in the case of the sound tests, in certain of the Weber's law
tests, and in the plain electric-box tests, the period of hesitation
rapidly increases during the first three or four series of tests, then the
mouse seems to lessen its efforts to discriminate and more and more tends
to rush into one of the boxes without hesitation or examination, and
apparently with the expectation of a shock, but with the intention of
getting it over as soon as possible. Now and then under such conditions
there is a marked tendency to enter the same box each time.
Indiscriminable conditions are likely to render the animals fearful of the
experiment; instead of going from _A_ to _A_ willingly, they fight against
making the trip. They refuse to pass from _A_ to _B_; and when in _B_,
they fight against being driven toward the entrances to the electric-
boxes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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