Science Matches Humans Against Rats (Jul, 1940)
Filed under: Animals — @ 11:27 pm
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1940
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Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1940
| Buy on Ebay
Science Matches Humans Against Rats
Comparing the learning ability of rats and men is the purpose of new apparatus recently demonstrated at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The rodents averaged fifty trials before they learned to navigate a wooden maze perfectly. They had to make thirty-six right decisions in order to reach a feeding dish. Humans, tried on another apparatus in which a metal stylus slides along grooves in a block, had to make a similar number of decisions while an automatic counter recorded their errors. The average number of trials required by humans was half as many as for the rats.
The gameshow “Are you smarter than a Rat?”
Comment by Githyanki — May 15, 2008 @ 4:31 am
Science? No way. It’s not a fair comparison, the human subjects can see the whole maze in a single glance, while the rats can only see the bit in front of them.
To be a fair test the human subjects should be placed into a full sized maze
Comment by Dave — May 15, 2008 @ 4:36 am