Thompson, Merrell E.

English

UARK (University of Arkansas )

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science Volume 7 Article 26 1955 Investigation of Directional Orientation in Mazes Without Goal Pointing Blinds Merrell E. Thompson University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas  Part of the Other Animal Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Thompson, Merrell E. (1955) "Investigation of Directional Orientation in Mazes Without Goal Pointing Blinds," Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science: Vol. 7 , Article 26. Available at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas/vol7/iss1/26 This article is available for use under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0). Users are able to read, download, copy, print, distribute, search, link to the full texts of these articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact scholar@uark.edu. IIAN INVESTIGATION OF DIRECTIONAL ORIENTATIONIN MAZES WITHOUT GOAL POINTING BLINDS1MERRELL E. THOMPSONUniversity of ArkansasINTRODUCTIONThe purpose of this study was to investigate the assumption that directionalorientation--if it is a factor in maze learning by the white rat-- facil itates arat's learning of a maze in which the goals are directionally opposed, as com-pared with the learning of a maze in which the goals are not directionallyopposed.Although the effect of the spatial relation of the goal to the rest of themaze in the absence of extra-maze cues has received scant attention in recentyears, the authors of several recent text books (1, 4, 6) have revived the goalor directional orientation hypothesis. Despite the acceptance of the directionalorientation hypothesis by the authors of these books, the evidence remains in-conclusive. This may be partly due to the use of entries into goal pointingblinds as a measure of the orientation factor. In order to clarify the picture,further experimental evidence is needed in which directional orientation isisolated from the anticipatory goal reaction.GENERAL EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDUREApparatus. Two modified T-mazes were used as shown in the floor plan inFigure 1. The same starting box and choice point were used for both mazesFig. I.Floor Plan of the Experimental Maze. C= Curtains, D = Guillotinedoors, G=Goal boxes.Constructed of white pine and painted a flat black, the maze alleys were 4 incheswide and 3% inches high. They were covered with hardware cloth. The short alleyleading to the choice point from the starting box was only 2% inches wide inorder to minimize the effects of following one wall up to the point of choice.The study reported in this paper was conductedat the State University of Iowa. The writerWilcoxon for suggestions in the preparation ofNOTE: Research Paper No. 1106, Journal Series,innby the writer in the Psychological Laboratorywishes to express his gratitude to Dr. H. C.the manuscript.University of Arkansas.100Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 7 [1955], Art. 26Published by Arkansas Academy of Science, 1955DIRECTIONAL ORIENTATION INMAZES 101Tk goal boxes were 14 inches long, and sized to fit snugly inside the maze: A hinged single-valve door, fastened on the front of the goal boxes,-evented retracing from the goal. The experimental room was lighted to provideuniform illumination over both paths.Subjects and Training Procedure . The subjects were 22 female albino ratsrom the colony maintained by the Psychology Department of the State Universityf Iowa. At the beginning of the study, they were between 90 and 100 days old.,e subjects were assigned at random to the two groups before the preliminaryraining began. After following a regular feeding schedule for one week, thenimals were trained to run a straight alley 6 feet long within 5 seconds in 4ut of 5 successive trials. The food box in this straight alley contained alinged single-valve door--the same as was employed in the maze used in the learn-ng series. This helped the rats learn to open that type of door.Learning Series. The learning series in the experimental mazes started theay after completion of preliminary training. Neither goal box contained a foodeward on the first run, and the path chosen by each animal became the incorrectlath for that animal for the remainder of the experiment. Each subject took four•uns a day with 15 minutes between trials, until the criterion of 6 consecutiveorrect runs was reached. The non-corrective method was used throughout thetudy. A trial consisted of a run from the starting box to one of the two goalloxes. When an animal ran to the correct goal box, it was allowed to eat themall piece of food, and it was returned then to the carrying cage to await theext trial. Ifthe animal ran to the incorrect goal box, it was removed after0 seconds and returned to the carrying cage. Through such procedure, only oneerror could be recorded for each animal on each trial. A small pellet of therat's regular diet was placed in the correct goal box as incentive. The pelletsweighed about .15 gm. The animals were fed their daily ration, consisting of8 gm. of Purina Dog Chow, immediately after the daily experimental period.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe null hypothesis (that there is no difference between the groups) can notbe rejected as the t for trials is .22 and for errors, .29. Thus, the resultsfail to support the assumption that directional orientation is a factor in mazelearning by the white rat.Table I. The Mean Number of Trials Required to Reach the Criterion andthe Mean Number of Errors of the Two Groups with RespectiveStandard Deviations.Trials ErrorsStandard StandardGroup Maze Mean Deviations Mean DeviationsI A 10.27 6.27 5.82 3.32II B 10.82 4.91 5.45 2.28The factor of goal or directional orientation has not been defined clearly.Most authors appear to imply that the rat actually learns the direction in whichthe goal lies, and further that the animal reacts to this "knowledge" from anypoint in the maze. Underwood (6, p. 426) has stated:Part of what a rat learns in a maze appears to be an orientationtoward the goal. Itis as if,after a few trials, the animal learnsthat the goal box is "over there."IIfthe writer correctly interprets this statement by Underwood, the mazesigns used in this study were such that maze B should have been learned moreadily that maze A, because the rat is capable of learning that the goal box"over there." Although this learning of "over thereness" did not occur inis study, it"apparently" has been found in a number of previous studies. How-er, the complex design of many mazes used in studies of directional orientationUNIVERSITY OF ARKANSASLIBRARY 101Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 7 [1955], Art. 26https://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas/vol7/iss1/26102 ARKANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE(I;¦1makes it difficult, ifnot impossible, to determine the variables which are in.fluencing the learning of the rat. In multiple T-mazes in which the last correctturnis the same as the turns leading into goal-pointing blinds, it is impossibleto determine the influence of directional orientation, since the animal maybe making anticipatory goal responses. For this reason the writer feels thatBrogdon's definition (2, p. 601) is inadequate, since he defines directionalorientation as the tendency to make more errors in goal-pointing blinds than innon goal-pointing blinds.SUMMARYAlbino rats were run in two modified T-mazes in order to test the assumptionthat directional orientation would facilitate the learning of a maze in whichthe goals are directionally opposed, as compared with the learning of a maze inin which the goals are not directionally opposed.There was no significant difference in the learning of the two groups whenthey were analyzed in terms of mean errors or in terms of the number of trialsrequired to learn. Thus, the results failed to support the assumption thatdirectional orientation is a factor in maze learning by the white rat.REFERENCES1. Bartley, S. H. Beginning Exper imenta IPsychology . New York: McGraw-Hill(1950)2. Brogden, W. J. "Animal Studies of Learning." Handbook of Exper imental Psy-chology. New York: Wiley, pp. 568-612 (1951).3. Gilhousen, H. C. "Final Goal Versus Sub-Goal Distance Discrimination."J. Comp. Psychol., 31, pp. 35-42 (1941).4. Kellogg, W. N. "Conditioning and Motor Learning." Methods of Psychology.New York: Wiley, pp. 23-63 (1948).5. Spence, K. W., and Grice, G. R. "The Role of Final and Sub-Goals in DistanceDiscrimination by the White Rat." J. Comp. Psychol., 34, pp. 179-184(1942).6. Underwood, B. J. Experimental Psychology . New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts(1949).It is possible that two different variables were operative in the present study, although thefactor of anticipation of the last correct turn was removed from the maze situation. Bothmazes had a forced turn for the animals after the choice was made. These turns may have gainedsecondary reinforcing properties, and therefore acted as sub-goals as described by Gilhousen(3). Spence and Grice (5), on the other hand, have presented evidence against the sub-goaleffect in the type of maze used by Gilhousen. If sub-goals played a role in this maze situ-ation, it would follow that arriving at them should have reinforced responses which led tothem. In this study, the response at the choice point was the critical one to be learned.Thus, the problem is to deduce the possible differential effects of the sub-goals on thelearning of this choice response. There are two important aspects of the present situationwhich must be considered: (1) the sub-goal in maze B should have had greater reinforcingproperties since it was located much closer to the final goal, and (2) the sub-goal in maze Awas achieved with shorter delay following the choice point and therefore should reinforce thechoice response more strongly. As the effectiveness of the sub-goals appears to be equated,we may assume tentatively that they were not affecting differentially the learning of therats in the two mazes. This, however, waits for an empirical test.102Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 7 [1955], Art. 26Published by Arkansas Academy of Science, 1955

Investigation of Directional Orientation in Mazes Without Goal Pointing Blinds

ScholarWorks@UARK

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of ScienceVolume 7 Article 261955Investigation of Directional Orientation in MazesWithout Goal Pointing BlindsMerrell E. ThompsonUniversity of Arkansas, FayettevilleFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaasPart of the Other Animal Sciences CommonsThis article is available for use under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0). Users are able toread, download, copy, print, distribute, search, link to the full texts of these articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking priorpermission from the publisher or the author.This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of the Arkansas Academyof Science by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact scholar@uark.edu, ccmiddle@uark.edu.Recommended CitationThompson, Merrell E. (1955) "Investigation of Directional Orientation in Mazes Without Goal Pointing Blinds," Journal of theArkansas Academy of Science: Vol. 7 , Article 26.Available at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas/vol7/iss1/26IIAN INVESTIGATION OF DIRECTIONAL ORIENTATIONIN MAZES WITHOUT GOAL POINTING BLINDS1MERRELL E. THOMPSONUniversity of ArkansasINTRODUCTIONThe purpose of this study was to investigate the assumption that directionalorientation--if it is a factor in maze learning by the white rat-- facil itates arat's learning of a maze in which the goals are directionally opposed, as com-pared with the learning of a maze in which the goals are not directionallyopposed.Although the effect of the spatial relation of the goal to the rest of themaze in the absence of extra-maze cues has received scant attention in recentyears, the authors of several recent text books (1, 4, 6) have revived the goalor directional orientation hypothesis. Despite the acceptance of the directionalorientation hypothesis by the authors of these books, the evidence remains in-conclusive. This may be partly due to the use of entries into goal pointingblinds as a measure of the orientation factor. In order to clarify the picture,further experimental evidence is needed in which directional orientation isisolated from the anticipatory goal reaction.GENERAL EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDUREApparatus. Two modified T-mazes were used as shown in the floor plan inFigure 1. The same starting box and choice point were used for both mazesFig. I.Floor Plan of the Experimental Maze. C= Curtains, D = Guillotinedoors, G=Goal boxes.Constructed of white pine and painted a flat black, the maze alleys were 4 incheswide and 3% inches high. They were covered with hardware cloth. The short alleyleading to the choice point from the starting box was only 2% inches wide inorder to minimize the effects of following one wall up to the point of choice.The study reported in this paper was conductedat the State University of Iowa. The writerWilcoxon for suggestions in the preparation ofNOTE: Research Paper No. 1106, Journal Series,innby the writer in the Psychological Laboratorywishes to express his gratitude to Dr. H. C.the manuscript.University of Arkansas.100Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 7 [1955], Art. 26Published by Arkansas Academy of Science, 1955DIRECTIONAL ORIENTATION INMAZES 101Tk goal boxes were 14 inches long, and sized to fit snugly inside the maze: A hinged single-valve door, fastened on the front of the goal boxes,-evented retracing from the goal. The experimental room was lighted to provideuniform illumination over both paths.Subjects and Training Procedure . The subjects were 22 female albino ratsrom the colony maintained by the Psychology Department of the State Universityf Iowa. At the beginning of the study, they were between 90 and 100 days old.,e subjects were assigned at random to the two groups before the preliminaryraining began. After following a regular feeding schedule for one week, thenimals were trained to run a straight alley 6 feet long within 5 seconds in 4ut of 5 successive trials. The food box in this straight alley contained alinged single-valve door--the same as was employed in the maze used in the learn-ng series. This helped the rats learn to open that type of door.Learning Series. The learning series in the experimental mazes started theay after completion of preliminary training. Neither goal box contained a foodeward on the first run, and the path chosen by each animal became the incorrectlath for that animal for the remainder of the experiment. Each subject took four•uns a day with 15 minutes between trials, until the criterion of 6 consecutiveorrect runs was reached. The non-corrective method was used throughout thetudy. A trial consisted of a run from the starting box to one of the two goalloxes. When an animal ran to the correct goal box, it was allowed to eat themall piece of food, and it was returned then to the carrying cage to await theext trial. Ifthe animal ran to the incorrect goal box, it was removed after0 seconds and returned to the carrying cage. Through such procedure, only oneerror could be recorded for each animal on each trial. A small pellet of therat's regular diet was placed in the correct goal box as incentive. The pelletsweighed about .15 gm. The animals were fed their daily ration, consisting of8 gm. of Purina Dog Chow, immediately after the daily experimental period.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe null hypothesis (that there is no difference between the groups) can notbe rejected as the t for trials is .22 and for errors, .29. Thus, the resultsfail to support the assumption that directional orientation is a factor in mazelearning by the white rat.Table I. The Mean Number of Trials Required to Reach the Criterion andthe Mean Number of Errors of the Two Groups with RespectiveStandard Deviations.Trials ErrorsStandard StandardGroup Maze Mean Deviations Mean DeviationsI A 10.27 6.27 5.82 3.32II B 10.82 4.91 5.45 2.28The factor of goal or directional orientation has not been defined clearly.Most authors appear to imply that the rat actually learns the direction in whichthe goal lies, and further that the animal reacts to this "knowledge" from anypoint in the maze. Underwood (6, p. 426) has stated:Part of what a rat learns in a maze appears to be an orientationtoward the goal. Itis as if,after a few trials, the animal learnsthat the goal box is "over there."IIfthe writer correctly interprets this statement by Underwood, the mazesigns used in this study were such that maze B should have been learned moreadily that maze A, because the rat is capable of learning that the goal box"over there." Although this learning of "over thereness" did not occur inis study, it"apparently" has been found in a number of previous studies. How-er, the complex design of many mazes used in studies of directional orientationUNIVERSITY OF ARKANSASLIBRARY 101Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 7 [1955], Art. 26http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas/vol7/iss1/26102 ARKANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE(I;¦1makes it difficult, ifnot impossible, to determine the variables which are in.fluencing the learning of the rat. In multiple T-mazes in which the last correctturnis the same as the turns leading into goal-pointing blinds, it is impossibleto determine the influence of directional orientation, since the animal maybe making anticipatory goal responses. For this reason the writer feels thatBrogdon's definition (2, p. 601) is inadequate, since he defines directionalorientation as the tendency to make more errors in goal-pointing blinds than innon goal-pointing blinds.SUMMARYAlbino rats were run in two modified T-mazes in order to test the assumptionthat directional orientation would facilitate the learning of a maze in whichthe goals are directionally opposed, as compared with the learning of a maze inin which the goals are not directionally opposed.There was no significant difference in the learning of the two groups whenthey were analyzed in terms of mean errors or in terms of the number of trialsrequired to learn. Thus, the results failed to support the assumption thatdirectional orientation is a factor in maze learning by the white rat.REFERENCES1. Bartley, S. H. Beginning Exper imenta IPsychology . New York: McGraw-Hill(1950)2. Brogden, W. J. "Animal Studies of Learning." Handbook of Exper imental Psy-chology. New York: Wiley, pp. 568-612 (1951).3. Gilhousen, H. C. "Final Goal Versus Sub-Goal Distance Discrimination."J. Comp. Psychol., 31, pp. 35-42 (1941).4. Kellogg, W. N. "Conditioning and Motor Learning." Methods of Psychology.New York: Wiley, pp. 23-63 (1948).5. Spence, K. W., and Grice, G. R. "The Role of Final and Sub-Goals in DistanceDiscrimination by the White Rat." J. Comp. Psychol., 34, pp. 179-184(1942).6. Underwood, B. J. Experimental Psychology . New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts(1949).It is possible that two different variables were operative in the present study, although thefactor of anticipation of the last correct turn was removed from the maze situation. Bothmazes had a forced turn for the animals after the choice was made. These turns may have gainedsecondary reinforcing properties, and therefore acted as sub-goals as described by Gilhousen(3). Spence and Grice (5), on the other hand, have presented evidence against the sub-goaleffect in the type of maze used by Gilhousen. If sub-goals played a role in this maze situ-ation, it would follow that arriving at them should have reinforced responses which led tothem. In this study, the response at the choice point was the critical one to be learned.Thus, the problem is to deduce the possible differential effects of the sub-goals on thelearning of this choice response. There are two important aspects of the present situationwhich must be considered: (1) the sub-goal in maze B should have had greater reinforcingproperties since it was located much closer to the final goal, and (2) the sub-goal in maze Awas achieved with shorter delay following the choice point and therefore should reinforce thechoice response more strongly. As the effectiveness of the sub-goals appears to be equated,we may assume tentatively that they were not affecting differentially the learning of therats in the two mazes. This, however, waits for an empirical test.102Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 7 [1955], Art. 26Published by Arkansas Academy of Science, 1955

https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=jaas

Investigation of Directional Orientation in Mazes Without Goal Pointing Blinds

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

UARK (University of Arkansas )

ScholarWorks@UARK