MAZE STUDIES WITH THE WHITE RAT 



I. Normal Animals 



HARVEY CARR 



University of Chicago 



INTRODUCTION 



The work of Watson, Bogardus and Henke, Vincent, et. al. 

 has shown that the white rat learns the standard type of maze 

 primarily in tactual and kinaesthetic terms, that during the 

 learning the control is gradually transferred from contact to 

 kinaesthesis, and that after the problem is thoroughly mastered 

 the act is to be regarded as a kinaesthetic-motor coordination 

 with an occasional reliance upon contact in times of emergency. 



The neglect of the senses of vision, audition, and smell in 

 the process of acquisition is not due to any functional incapacity 

 of these senses. Miss Vincent has demonstrated quite con- 

 clusively that with a proper arrangement of the mazes both 

 vision and smell will be effectively utilized in the development 

 of the maze habit. Neither can it be affirmed that no optical, 

 auditory, or olfactory data are present in the standard maze 

 situation; rather we must conclude that for the rat organization 

 these data as compared with those of contact and kinaesthesis 

 are inadequate for the solution of this particular kind of a 

 problem. The maze habit can be regarded as a definite sensori- 

 motor coordination which was developed and which functions 

 within a larger sensory environment. Many of these environing 

 sensory conditions remain relatively constant and stable during 

 the mastery of the maze. 



Our experiments were designed to test the dependence of the 

 maze coordination upon the stability of the wider sensory 

 environment in which it was developed. The method consists 

 of varying these environmental conditions while the maze is 

 being learned or after it is mastered. In the usual type oj 

 experiment the rats are transferred from the living cage (kept 

 in a constant position) to the maze located in a different 



259 



