Dougan, Faculty Advisor, James

Wodka, Malory

English

Digital Commons @ Illinois Wesleyan University

Illinois Wesleyan UniversityDigital Commons @ IWUJohn Wesley Powell Student ResearchConference 2010, 21st Annual JWP ConferenceApr 10th, 2:35 PM - 3:35 PMA Reevaluation of Capaldi and Miller's "Countingin Rats: Its Functional Significance and theIndependent Cognitive Processes That ConstituteIt"Malory WodkaIllinois Wesleyan UniversityJames Dougan, Faculty AdvisorIllinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/jwprcPart of the Psychiatry and Psychology CommonsThis Event is brought to you for free and open access by The Ames Library, the Andrew W. Mellon Center for Curricular and FacultyDevelopment, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the President. It has been accepted for inclusion in Digital Commons @ IWU bythe faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@iwu.edu.©Copyright is owned by the author of this document.Wodka, Malory and Dougan, Faculty Advisor, James, "A Reevaluation of Capaldi and Miller's "Counting in Rats: ItsFunctional Significance and the Independent Cognitive Processes That Constitute It"" (2010). John Wesley Powell StudentResearch Conference. 30.http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/jwprc/2010/posters2/30THE JOHN WESLEY POWELL STUDENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE - APRIL 2010 Poster Presentation P58 A REEVALUATION OF CAPALDI AND MJI.lER.'S "COUNTING IN RATS: ITS FUNCTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE AND THE INDEPENDENT COGNITIVE PROCESSES THAT CONSTITUTE IT" Malon' Wodka and James Dougan* Psychology Department, Illinois Wesleyan University In 1988, Capaldi and Miller ran a series of runway experiments investigating how rats count reinforcing events by using two randomly alternating sequences of trials in which a rat can potentially predict that a nonreinforced trial will always follow after two consecutive reinforced trials. Capaldi measured the time a rat took to reach the goal box of the runway to determine whether the rat expected to be reinforced upon reaching the goal box. The present study attempts to replicate, and hopefully improve upon, Capaldi and Miller's first of seven sub-experiments within their study. To eliminate potential error caused by differences in handling the rats prior to reinforced trials compared to nonreinforced trials, the present study utilized a closed circuit runway in which rats are not handled between trials. Furthermore, to make the previous study'S results clearer, the original runway design was adapted to a y-maze which provided a greater potential number of reinforcers to be delivered per sequence of trials. 

A Reevaluation of Capaldi and Miller\u27s  Counting in Rats: Its Functional Significance and the Independent Cognitive Processes That Constitute It

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A Reevaluation of Capaldi and Miller\u27s Counting in Rats: Its Functional Significance and the Independent Cognitive Processes That Constitute It

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