User:Sejagodi/sandbox

Personal Life

Little is known about Willard Small due to his leaving psychology after his influential study, An Experimental Study of the Mental Processes of the Rat. What is known is that he received a Bachelor's degree from Tufts College in 1897 and his graduate studies at Clark University. After his graduate work, Small did faculty work in Michigan State Normal College and Los Angeles State Normal School. Later, he served as an educational administrator in San Diego, Paterson New Jersey, and Washington D.C. Finally, he became the Dean of the University of Maryland in 1923.

An Experimental Study of the Mental Processes of the Rat

This is Small's journal article describing his work using white rats to test the amount of time they took to find food in a maze. Observations on behavior were recorded.

Background

An example of The Hampton Court maze Small used to create his famous rat maze.

One of Small's inspirations for this study was Edward Thorndike's work with rats and puzzle boxes. Since the rats were available from Thorndike's work, Edmund Sanford suggested using a maze (The Hampton Court maze) to study rats. A maze was suggested because rats tend to build tunnels, which the maze would simulate. Small copied The Hampton Maze from Encyclopedia Britannica and made three versions.

Wild rats were used in the beginning of the study, but found that they were more active and more afraid of the maze than the white rats.

Small begins with an excerpt stating that the white rats used (mus decumanus) are only held in captivity, and therefore may have some variation when compared to wild rats.

The structure of the experiment is six groups with multiple experiments within each group. Observations were recorded so the impressions were "hot," as Small describes them.

Group I

This group of experiments was a pilot to the subsequent experiments in the study conducted by Small. The study describes its purpose to asses the rats' behavior while completing the maze and the time it took to complete the maze. Hunger was used as motivation to complete the maze. Interestingly, Small does not describe how long the rats were deprived of food in order to better explain how hungry the rats were. The maze is describe as 6-inch box with wire mesh sides and a glass top. The box (designated Box I) was raised 1.5 inches with wood. A hole was cut in the front to permit a rat. Food was placed inside the box at the time of feeding. Small organized the experiments into two series. In the first series, Thirteen experiments with two rats (one male and one female designated as Rat I and Rat II) were conducted. The rats did manage to complete the maze quicker after many trials, dropping their time from one and a half hours to 30 seconds. This allowed the assumption that the rats understood the maze and the goal. Small noted how the rats seemed to have stopped fearing the box and its features by the sixth day. Repeating the same experiment with different rats did yield similar results, however the next set of rats were less timid than the first set.

Group II

This group was similar to Group I, with slight variations in focus of the rats' behavior and the box used. A door was added (held together by paper strips) that could only be removed by force of the rat. This box was designated "Box II." The same rats were used in these experiments across both series of experiments with similar results as Group I. Worthy findings from this set of experiments were that even with an obstacle, the rats were able to learn how to open the door and access the food quicker with each succession. However, in cases of extreme hunger, the rats tended to use automatic responses like digging, which were not useful for this task. Also, Small began noticing individual differences among the rats, where one rat did all the work while the other waited until the door was open.

Group III

This group of experiments was designed to test the discrimination of the boxes. Box I and Box II were used interchangeably to test how well the rats were able to discriminate between the boxes. The findings of these experiments furthered Small's suspicion that the rats have variable levels of personality and intelligence. In one series, one of the rats could recognize Box I, but no evidence showed that Box II was recognized as distinct. In the next series, one of the rats showed clear evidence of recognizing either box and being able to discriminate between the two.

Group IV

In this group, Small removed a spring in Box II that allowed the door to swing open once the paper strips were removed. The door had to be opened by poking and crawling under it. This was done as a test of the rats' adaptability to change. The smartest rat was able to adapt, gradually fearing the change less and was quicker at completing the task. He then tested the extinction of this association by not using the box for 40 days. When the box returned, the tested rat was able to discriminate between and recognize the boxes. The rat also managed to obtain the food in 25 seconds, demonstrating memory of the maze. This was significant evidence that rats have the ability to learn, discriminate between, and remember mazes and routes for long periods of time.

Group V

This set of experiments was conducted the same as Group IV, but with four eight-week old male rats. During this experiment, the rats were gradually able to learn that the door was the key to getting food and were quicker at completing the task with sequential trials. One interesting finding was that the rats tended to imitate each other, when one rat dug in a particular spot, the other rats crowded to that spot. Also, there tended to be a "lead rat" that learned how to complete the task while the others waited. As the lead rat was removed, one of the other rats became a leader and gradually learned to open the door quicker. Finally, Small placed the box back in with the rats that were previously removed. Even after not running the maze or opening the door for 27 days, the rats still showed evidence of remembering the task, completing it in 10 seconds.

Group VI

Group VI was a test of imitation, using the rats from the previous experiments that elected to wait until the partner opened the door rather than opening the door themselves. After being allowed to run the maze, the rats did show evidence of learning the maze (judged by reduced completion times). However, Small could not demonstrate that these rats imitated each other, as the other rat did not learn to complete the maze. There was no evidence of imitation.

Implications

The study is considered one of the most influential studies in psychology. The maze specifically was seen as a useful device, being used by animal psychologists through the 1920s and onward. A notable study is James Porter's work in Indiana University using a modified maze with sparrows.