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The more trials the rats completed, the fewer errors, which he characterized by the rat avoiding the blind alleys. [4] A maze was used by Tolman in the following experiment: at point A, a hungry rat was placed as the starting point; point B was where the food for the rat was placed. The rat learned to get to B for food throughout the trials.
Despite the fact that his major research focus involved instinct and purpose, he was open to the idea of researching innate abilities in the rats. Tolman's study was the first experiment to examine the genetic basis of maze learning by breeding distinct lineages of rats selected for their maze performance.
Individual rats would rarely eat except in the company of other rats. As a result extreme population densities developed in the pen adopted for eating, leaving the others with sparse populations. In the experiments in which the behavioral sink developed, infant mortality ran as high as 96 percent among the most disoriented groups in the population.
Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements.The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a corresponding clearly defined stimulus.
Self-preservation is essentially the process of an organism preventing itself from being harmed or killed and is considered a basic instinct in most organisms. [6] Most call it a "survival instinct". Self-preservation is thought to be tied to an organism's reproductive fitness and can be more or less present according to perceived reproduction ...
Rats, for example, prefer to burrow amongst dense areas of vegetation or around human settlements which they come into contact with often. [10] Often some rodent species create burrows that develop microclimates. This is another way that nesting instinct aids in thermoregulation. [4]
Image credits: Dr. Kelly Lambert A study led by Dr. Kelly Lambert aimed to teach rats how to drive in order to research rodent cognitive complexity. The study on rodent cognitive complexity, led ...
To discover how rats habituate to change, Small made it so the door to the food in the box did not spring open. The rats would have to crawl under the door to get to the food. The rat Small deemed to be the most intelligent was able to gradually figure out the way to get the food quicker with less fear, showing evidence of habituation.