The Dancing Mouse Part 7

Still another litter, which consisted of one female and four males, began to exhibit the quick, jerky movements, already mentioned, on the fourteenth day. On the morning of the fifteenth day three members of the litter definitely reacted to the tone of the steel bar, and also to the hammer blow when the bar was held tightly in the hand of the experimenter.

My observations were verified by another experimenter. Two individuals which appeared to be very sensitive were selected for special tests. Their reactions were obvious on the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth days; on the nineteenth day they were indefinite, and on the twentieth none could be detected. Some individuals of this litter certainly had the ability to hear for at least five days.

A sixth litter of four females and two males first gave indications of the change in behavior which by this time I had come to interpret as a sign of the approach of the period of auditory sensitiveness, on the seventeenth day. I had tested them almost every day previous to this time without obtaining evidence of hearing. The tests with the steel bar and the Galton whistle were continued each day until the end of the fourth week without positive results. To all appearances the individuals of this litter were unable to hear at any time during the first month of life.

Practically the same results were obtained with another litter of four females. The change in their behavior was obvious on the eighteenth day, but at no time during the first month did they give any satisfactory indications of hearing.

In the accompanying table, I have presented in condensed form the results of my auditory tests in the case of twelve litters of young dancers.

TABLE 5

PERIOD OF AUDITORY REACTION IN YOUNG DANCERS

PARENTS No. in Change in Ears Auditory Reactions Litter Behavior Open Appear Disappear

152+151 5 13th day 14th day 14th day 16th day 152+15l 8 (?) 13th day 13th day 17th day 152+151 5 13th day 13th day 13th day 17th day 152+151 4 10th day 12th day 13th day 15th day 410+415 5 14th day 15th day 15th day 19th day 410+415 6 13th day 14th day 14th day 18th day 420+425 2 12th day 14th day 14th day 17th day 210+215 5 17th day 13th day 17th day 19th day 210+215 6 11th day 14th day No reactions 220+225 6 16th day 14th day No reactions 220+225 6 17th day 13th day No reactions 212+211 4 15th day 14th day No reactions

Certain of the litters tested responded definitely to sounds, others gave no sign of hearing at any time during the first four weeks of life. Of the twelve litters for which the results of auditory tests are presented in Table 5, eight evidently pa.s.sed through an auditory period. It is important to note that all except one of these were the offspring of Nos.

151 and 152, or of their descendants Nos. 410 and 415 and Nos. 420 and 425. In fact every one of the litters in this line of descent which I have tested, and they now number fifteen, has given indications of auditory sensitiveness. And, on the other hand, only in a single instance have the litters born of Nos. 210 and 215, or of their descendants, given evidence of ability to hear.

These two distinct lines of descent may be referred to hereafter as the 400 and the 200 lines. I have observed several important differences between the individuals of these groups in addition to the one already mentioned. The 200 mice were sometimes gray and white instead of black and white; they climbed much more readily and danced less vigorously than those of the 400 group. These facts are particularly interesting in connection with Cyon's descriptions of the two types of dancer which he observed.

In criticism of my conclusion that the young dancers are able to hear certain sounds for a few days early in life, and then become deaf, it has been suggested that they cease to react because they rapidly become accustomed to the sounds. That this is not the case, is evident from the fact that the reactions often increase in definiteness during the first two or three days and then suddenly disappear entirely. But even if this were not true, it would seem extremely improbable that the mouse should become accustomed to a sudden and startlingly loud sound with so few repet.i.tions as occurred in these tests. On any one day the sounds were not made more than five to ten times. Moreover, under the same external condition, the common mouse reacts unmistakably to these sounds day after day when they are first produced, although with repet.i.tion of the stimulus at short intervals, the reactions soon become indefinite or disappear.

The chief results of my study of hearing in the dancer may be summed up in a very few words. The young dancer, in some instances, hears sounds for a few days during the third week of life. The adult is totally deaf. Shortly before the period of auditory sensitiveness, the young dancer becomes extremely excitable and pugnacious.

CHAPTER VII

THE SENSE OF SIGHT: BRIGHTNESS VISION

The sense of sight in the dancer has received little attention hitherto.

In the literature there are a few casual statements to the effect that it is of importance. Zoth, for example (31 p. 149), remarks that it seems to be keenly developed; and other writers, on the basis of their observation of the animal's behavior, hazard similar statements. The descriptions of the behavior of blinded mice, as given by Cyon, Alexander and Kreidl, and Kishi (p.47), apparently indicate that the sense is of some value; they do not, however, furnish definite information concerning its nature and its role in the daily life of the animal.

The experimental study of this subject which is now to be described was undertaken, after careful and long-continued observation of the general behavior of the dancer, in order that our knowledge of the nature and value of the sense of sight in this representative of the Mammalia might be increased in scope and definiteness. The results of this study naturally fall into three groups: (1) those which concern brightness vision, (2) those which concern color vision, and (3) those which indicate the role of sight in the life of the dancer.

Too frequently investigators, in their work on vision in animals, have a.s.sumed that brightness vision and color vision are inseparable; or, if not making this a.s.sumption, they have failed to realize that the same wave-length probably has markedly different effects upon the retinal elements of the eyes of unlike organisms. In a study of the sense of sight it is extremely important to discover whether difference in the quality, as well as in the intensity, of a visual stimulus influences the organism; in other words, whether color sensitiveness, as well as brightness sensitiveness, is present. If the dancer perceives only brightness or luminosity, and not color, it is evident that its visual world is strikingly different from that of the normal human being. The experiments now to be described were planned to show what the facts really are.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 14.--Discrimination box. _W_, electric-box with white cardboards; B, electric-box with black cardboards. Drawn by Mr. C.H.

Toll.]

As a means of testing the ability of the dancer to distinguish differences in brightness, the experiment box represented by Figures 14 and 15 was devised. Figure 14 is the box as seen from the position of the experimenter during the tests. Figure 15 is its ground plan. This box, which was made of wood, was 98 cm. long, 38 cm. wide, and 17 cm. deep, as measured on the outside. The plan of construction and its significance in connection with these experiments on vision will be clear from the following account of the experimental procedure. A mouse whose brightness vision was to be tested was placed in the nest-box, A (Figure 15). Thence by pushing open the swinging door at _I_, it could pa.s.s into the entrance chamber, _B_. Having entered _B_ it could return to _A_ only by pa.s.sing through one of the electric-boxes, marked _W_, and following the alley to _O_, where by pushing open the swing door it could enter the nest-box. The door at _I_ swung inward, toward _B_, only; those at _O_, right and left, swung outward, toward _A_, only. It was therefore impossible for the mouse to follow any other course than _A-I-B-L-W-E-O_ or _A-I-B-R-W-E-O_. The doors at _I_ and _O_ were pieces of wire netting of 1/2 cm. mesh, hinged at the top so that a mouse could readily open them, in one direction, by pushing with its nose at any point along the bottom. On the floor of each of the electric-boxes, _W_, was an oak board 1 cm. in thickness, which carried electric wires by means of which the mouse could be shocked in _W_ when the tests demanded it. The interrupted circuit const.i.tuted by the wires in the two electric-boxes, in connection with the induction apparatus, _IC_, the dry battery, _C_, and the hand key, _K_, was made by taking two pieces of No. 20 American standard gauge copper wire and winding them around the oak board which was to be placed on the floor of each electric-box. The wires, which ran parallel with one another, 1/2 cm.

apart, fitted into shallow grooves in the edges of the board, and thus, as well as by being drawn taut, they were held firmly in position. The coils of the two pieces of wire alternated, forming an interrupted circuit which, when the key _K_ was closed, was completed if the feet of a mouse rested on points of both pieces of wire. Since copper wire stretches easily and becomes loose on the wooden base, it is better to use phosphor bronze wire of about the same size, if the surface covered by the interrupted circuit is more than three or four inches in width. The phosphor bronze wire is more difficult to wind satisfactorily, for it is harder to bend than the copper wire, and it has the further disadvantage of being more brittle. But when once placed properly, it forms a far more lasting and satisfactory interrupted circuit for such experiments as those to be described than does copper wire. In the case of the electric-boxes under consideration, the oak boards which carried the interrupted circuits were separate, and the two circuits were joined by the union of the wires between the boxes. The free ends of the two pieces of wire which const.i.tuted the interrupted circuit were connected with the secondary coil of a Porter inductorium whose primary coil was in circuit with a No. 6 Columbia dry battery. In the light of preliminary experiments, made in preparation for the tests of vision, the strength of the induced current received by the mouse was so regulated, by changing the position of the secondary coil with reference to the primary, that it was disagreeable but not injurious to the animal. What part the disagreeable shock played in the test of brightness vision will now be explained.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 15.--Ground plan of discrimination box. _A_, nest- box; _B_, entrance chamber; _W,W_, electric-boxes; _L_, doorway of left electric-box; _R_, doorway of right electric-box; _E_, exit from electric- box to alley; _I_, swinging door between _A_ and _B_; _O_, swinging door between alley and _A_; _IC_, induction apparatus; _C_, electric cell; _K_, key in circuit.]

An opportunity for visual discrimination by brightness difference was provided by placing dead black cardboard at the entrance and on the inside of one of the electric-boxes, as shown in Figure 14, _B_, and white cardboard similarly in the other box. These cardboards were movable and could be changed from one box to the other at the will of the experimenter. The test consisted in requiring the mouse to choose a certain brightness, for example, the white cardboard side, in order to return to the nest-box without receiving an electric shock. The question which the experimenter asked in connection with this test really is, Can a dancer learn to go to the white box and thus avoid discomfort? If we a.s.sume its ability to profit by experience within the limits of the number of experiences which it was given, such a modification of behavior would indicate discrimination of brightness. Can the dancer distinguish white from black; light gray from dark gray; two grays which are almost of the same brightness? The results which make up the remainder of this and the following chapter furnish a definite answer to these questions.

To return to the experimental procedure, the mouse which is being tested is placed by the experimenter in the nest-box, where frequently in the early tests food and a comfortable nest were attractions. If it does not of its own accord, as a result of its abundant random activity, pa.s.s through _I_ into _B_ within a few seconds, it is directed to the doorway and urged through. A choice is now demanded of the animal; to return to the nest-box it must enter either the white electric-box or the black one.

Should it choose the white box, it is permitted to return directly to _A_ by way of the doorway _E_, the alley, and the swinging door at _O_, and it thus gets the satisfaction of un.o.bstructed activity, freedom to whirl, to feed, and to retreat for a time to the nest. Should it choose to attempt to enter the black box, as it touches the wires of the interrupted circuit it receives a shock as a result of the closing of the key in the circuit by the experimenter, and further, if it continues its forward course instead of retreating from the "stinging" black box, its pa.s.sage through _E_ is blocked by a barrier of gla.s.s temporarily placed there by the experimenter, and the only way of escape to the nest-box is an indirect route by way of _B_ and the white box. Ordinarily the shock was given only when the mouse entered the wrong box, not when it retreated from it; it was never given when the right box was chosen. The box to be chosen, whether it was white, gray, or black, will be called the right box. The electric shock served as a means of forcing the animal to use its discriminating ability. But the question of motives in the tests is not so simple as might appear from this statement.

The reader will wonder why the mouse should have any tendency to enter _B_, and why after so doing, it should trouble to go further, knowing, as it does from previous experiences, that entering one of the electric-boxes may result in discomfort. The fact is, a dancer has no very constant tendency to go from _A_ to _B_ at the beginning of the tests, but after it has become accustomed to the box and has learned what the situation demands, it shows eagerness to make the trip from _A_ to _B_, and thence by way of either the right or the left route to _A_. That the mouse should be willing to enter either of the electric-boxes, after it has experienced the shock, is even more surprising than its eagerness to run from _A_ to _B_. When first tested for brightness discrimination in this apparatus, a dancer usually hesitated at the entrance to the electric-boxes, and this hesitation increased rapidly unless it were able to discriminate the boxes by their difference in brightness and thus to choose the right one. During the period of increasing hesitancy in making the choice, the experimenter, by carefully moving from _I_ toward the entrances to the electric-boxes a piece of cardboard which extended all the way across _B_, greatly increased the mouse's desire to enter one of the boxes by depriving it of dancing s.p.a.ce in _B_. If an individual which did not know which entrance to choose were permitted to run about in _B_, it would often do so for minutes at a time without approaching the entrance to the boxes; but the same individual, when confined to a dancing s.p.a.ce 4 or 5 cm. wide in front of the entrances, would enter one of the electric-boxes almost immediately. This facilitation of choice by decrease in the amount of s.p.a.ce for whirling was not to any considerable extent the result of fear, for all the dancers experimented with were tame, and instead of forcing them to rush into one of the boxes blindly and without attempt at discrimination, the narrowing of the s.p.a.ce simply increased their efforts to discriminate. The common mouse when subjected to similar experimental conditions is likely to be frightened by being forced to approach the entrances to the boxes, and fails to choose; it rushes into one box directly, and in consequence it is as often wrong as right. The dancer always chooses, but its eagerness to choose is markedly increased by the restriction of its movements to a narrow s.p.a.ce in front of the entrances between which it is required to discriminate. It is evident that the animal is uncomfortable in a s.p.a.ce which is too narrow for it to whirl in freely. It must have room to dance. This furnished a sufficiently strong motive for the entering of the electric-boxes. It must avoid disagreeable and unfavorable stimuli. This is a basis for attempts to choose, by visual discrimination, the electric-box in which the shock is not given. It may safely be said that the success of the majority of the experiments of this book depended upon three facts: (1) the dancer's tendency to avoid disagreeable external conditions, (2) its escape-from-confinement- impelling need of s.p.a.ce in which to dance freely, and (3) its abundant and incessant activity.

Of these three conditions of success in the experiments, the second and third made possible the advantageous use of the first. For the avoidance of a disagreeable stimulus could be made use of effectively in the tests just because the mice are so restless and so active. In fact their eagerness to do things is so great that the experimenter, instead of having to wait for them to perform the desired act, often is forced to make them wait while he completes his observation and record. In this respect they are unlike most other animals.

My experiments with the dancer differ from those which have been made by most students of mammalian behavior in one important respect. I have used punishment instead of reward as the chief motive for the proper performance of the required act. Usually in experiments with mammals hunger has been the motive depended upon. The animals have been required to follow a certain devious path, to escape from a box by working a b.u.t.ton, a bolt, a lever, or to gain entrance to a box by the use of teeth, claws, hands, or body weight and thus obtain food as a reward. There are two very serious objections to the use of the desire for food as a motive in animal behavior experiments--objections which in my opinion render it almost worthless in the case of many mammals. These are the discomfort of the animal and the impossibility of keeping the motive even fairly constant. However prevalent the experience of starvation may be in the life of an animal, it is not pleasant to think of subjecting it to extreme hunger in the laboratory for the sake of finding out what it can do to obtain food. Satisfactory results can be obtained in an experiment whose success depends chiefly upon hunger only when the animal is so hungry that it constantly does its best to obtain food, and when the desire for food is equally strong and equally effective as a spur to action in the repet.i.tions of the experiment day after day. It is easy enough to get almost any mammal into a condition of utter hunger, but it is practically impossible to have the desire for food of the same strength day after day.

In short, the desire for food is unsatisfactory as a motive in animal behavior work, first, because a condition of utter hunger, as has been demonstrated with certain mammals, is unfavorable for the performance of complex acts, second, because it is impossible to control the strength of the motive, and finally, because it is an inhumane method of experimentation.

In general, the method of punishment is more satisfactory than the method of reward, because it can be controlled to a greater extent. The experimenter cannot force his subject to desire food; he can, however, force it to discriminate between conditions to the best of its knowledge and ability by giving it a disagreeable stimulus every time it makes a mistake. In other words, the conditions upon which the avoidance of a disagreeable factor in the environment depends are far simpler and much more constant than those upon which the seeking of an agreeable factor depends. Situations which are potentially beneficial to the animal attract it in varying degrees according to its internal condition; situations which are potentially disagreeable or injurious repel it with a constancy which is remarkable. The favorable stimulus solicits a positive response; the unfavorable stimulus demands a negative response.

Finally, in connection with the discussion of motives, it is an important fact that forms of reward are far harder to find than forms of punishment.

Many animals feed only at long intervals, are inactive, do not try to escape from confinement, cannot be induced to seek a particular spot, in a word, do not react positively to any of the situations or conditions which are employed usually in behavior experiments. It is, however, almost always possible to find some disagreeable stimulus which such an animal will attempt to avoid.

As it happens, the dancer is an animal which does not stand the lack of food well enough to make hunger a possible motive. I was driven to make use of the avoiding reaction, and it has proved so satisfactory that I am now using it widely in connection with experiments on other animals. The use of the induction shock, upon which I depended almost wholly in the discrimination experiments with the dancer, requires care; but I am confident that no reasonable objection to the conduct of the experiments could be made on the ground of cruelty, for the strength of the current was carefully regulated and the shocks were given only for an instant at intervals. The best proof of the humaneness of the method is the fact that the animals continued in perfect health during months of experimentation.

The brightness discrimination tests demanded, in addition to motives for choice, adequate precautions against discrimination by other than visual factors, and, for that matter, by other visual factors than that of brightness. The mouse might choose, for example, not the white or the black box, but the box which was to the right or to the left, in accordance with its experience in the previous test. This would be discrimination by position. As a matter of fact, the animals have a strong tendency at first to go uniformly either to the right or to the left entrance. This tendency will be exhibited in the results of the tests.

Again, discrimination might depend upon the odors of the cardboards or upon slight differences in their shape, texture, or position. Before conclusive evidence of brightness discrimination could be obtained, all of these and other possibilities of discrimination had to be eliminated by check tests. I shall describe the various precautions taken in the experiments to guard against errors in interpretation, in order to show the lengths to which an experimenter may be driven in his search for safely interpretable results.

To exclude choice by position, the cardboards were moved from one electric-box to the other. When the change was made regularly, so that white was alternately on the right and the left, the mouse soon learned to go alternately to the right box and the left without stopping to notice the visual factor. This was prevented by changing the position of the cardboards irregularly.

Discrimination by the odor, texture, shape, and position of the cardboards was excluded by the use of different kinds of cardboards, by changing the form and position of them in check tests, and by coating them with sh.e.l.lac.

The brightness vision tests described in this chapter were made in a room which is lighted from the south only, with the experiment box directed away from the windows. The light from the windows shone upon the cardboards at the entrances to the electric-boxes, not into the eyes of the mouse as it approached them. Each mouse used in the experiments was given a series of ten tests in succession daily. The experiment was conducted as follows. A dancer was placed in _A_, where it usually ran about restlessly until it happened to find its way into _B_. Having discovered that the swing door at _I_ could be pushed open, the animal seemed to take satisfaction in pa.s.sing through into _B_ as soon as it had been placed in or had returned to _A_. In _B_, choice of two entrances, one of which was brighter than the other, was forced by the animal's need of s.p.a.ce for free movement. If the right box happened to be chosen, the mouse returned to _A_ and was ready for another test; if it entered the wrong box, the electric shock was given, and it was compelled to retreat from the box and enter the other one instead. In the early tests with an individual, a series sometimes covered from twenty to thirty minutes; in later tests, provided the condition of discrimination was favorable, it did not occupy more than ten minutes.

To exhibit the methods of keeping the records of these experiments and certain features of the results, two sample record sheets are reproduced below. The first of these sheets, Table 6, represents the results given by No. 5, a female,[1] in her first series of white-black tests. Table 7 presents the results of the eleventh series of tests given to the same individual.

[Footnote 1: It is to be remembered that the even numbers always designate males; the odd numbers, females.]

In the descriptions of the various visual experiments of this and the following chapters, the first word of the couplet which describes the condition of the experiment, for example, white-black, always designates the visual condition which the animal was to choose, the second that which it was to avoid on penalty of an electric shock. In the case of Tables 6 and 7, for example, white cardboard was placed in one box, black in the other, and the animal was required to enter the white box. In the tables the first column at the left gives the number of the test, the second the positions of the cardboards, and the third and fourth the result of the choice. The first test of Table 6 was made with the white cardboard on the box which stood at the left of the mouse as it approached from _A_, and, consequently, with the black cardboard on the right. As is indicated by the record in the "wrong" column, the mouse chose the black instead of the white. The result of this first series was choice of the white box four times as compared with choice of the black box six times. On the eleventh day, that is, after No. 5 had been given 100 tests in this brightness vision experiment, she made no mistakes in a series of ten trials (Table 7).

TABLE 6

BRIGHTNESS DISCRIMINATION

White-Black, Series 1

Experimented on No. 5 January 15, 1906 POSITION OF TEST CARDBOARDS RIGHT WRONG

1 White left -- Wrong 2 White right -- Wrong 3 White left -- Wrong 4 White right -- Wrong 5 White left Right -- 6 White right Right -- 7 White left -- Wrong 8 White right Right -- 9 White left -- Wrong 10 White right Right --

Totals 4 6