Life's a Rat Race!

See a quicktime movie of the winning performance during Spring 1998's Great Rat Race!

One of your projects for this course is to condition a rat to be able to complete a complex maze in a short period of time. In conditioning your rat to master this task, you will gain first-hand experience with some of the basic principles of instrumental conditioning.

Procedure

Each day before you run your rat, she must be food deprived for 23 hours. This is necessary to provide motivation for her to get to the goal box, where food will be waiting. Initially, you will condition your rat to eat in the goal box area of the maze. Once your rat becomes conditioned to eating food there, you will undertake a backwards chaining technique to teach your rat how to get through the maze until she is able to complete the entire maze in a single run. To get some ideas on how you might go about a project like this, you might want to see how animal training at Seaworld is done. Another very good resource, especially on conditioned reinforcement, is Karen Prior's Frequently Asked Questions about Clicker training at her Don't Shoot the Dog site. Her explanation of the use of a clicker in dog training explains conditioned reinforcement well.

Bear in mind that at no time is physical punishment of your animal allowed. What you do to each other is your own business.

You will work in pairs. For the duration of the assignment, you will train your rat every weekday for about twenty minutes. Following your daily session, give your rat three pellets of food. If your rat is losing weight (you need to weigh your rat daily before running it), increase the ration of food that you are giving your rat and see me immediately.

CAUTION!!!! CAUTION!!!!

Be certain that your rat is being cared for daily! Rats on deprivation schedules are particularly vulnerable to disease. If you forget to care for your rat for just one day, your rat will be going for 48 hours without food, which in all likelihood will kill your subject. Your neglect will be negatively punished by the removal of points from your final grade.

There will be a chart on the wall of the maze room with each team's name and the dates that you will be training your rat. Each day write your rat's weight on the chart under the corresponding date, and also cross off the day after you've trained your rat. Also, you will include a brief report on your rat's progress as part of your study guide answers for the portion of the class during which you are training your rat.

It is also your responsibility to keep your rat's cage clean. Every week (on days that are outlined in red on the chart), change the shavings in your rat's cage and also wipe the cage out. This will enhance the well-being and happiness of your rat, allowing for her to always be at her top physical performance.

The results of your project will be presented as a significant part of your journal for this class. Your journal should include a description of what your rat did each day plus your own observations, experiences, theories, etc. Record any unusual events that take place as well as whatever insights you are getting into the process of learning. Your final journal entry on your rat training will summarize what happened, why you think it happened, etc. This entry is your opportunity to pull it all together. Think about writing this entry for someone who would like to know what you did and what you learned from it. While there is no specified length, it should be long enough that it well represents your work on this project. Your standard should be that you would be proud to show it to others as representative of the quality of your work. Make sure to incorporate the material that you've learned in class and have incorporated into the training of your rat.

The second part of your results will be a demonstration of your rat's proficiency in running the maze. Right before Thanksgiving, The Great Rat Race will be held in class. During The Great Rat Race, certain ground rules will be in effect:

The elapsed time of your rat's run will be recorded from when your rat first places a paw on the first ramp until a paw is placed on the goal box platform.
Your rat may not be touched, blown on, etc. once the run has begun. Threats and bribes are acceptable, however.
No part of your body may extend over an imaginary plane surrounding the maze. Pretend that there is a force field extending vertically around the boundaries of the maze, and any part of your body that crosses it will be immediately vaporized.
No training "props" such as mesh over the maze, locked doors, etc. may be used during The Great Rat Race.

All rats will be timed and a winner will be determined. The winning rat will automatically receive a berth on the U.S. National team and will compete in the upcoming world animal games to be held this January as the highlight event of the Bulgarian World's Fair. The Russians are supposedly tough this year, so train your rat well. No prize money can be offered, however, since the International Amateur Athletic Federation has determined that it would invalidate your rat's standing as an amateur. (I have heard that the Russian's top rats are majors in the Russian Army and do nothing but run mazes. Unfair competition, perhaps, but what one expects from godless communists.) The winning rat will be tested for drug use. Any evidence of the use of banned substances such as steroids or any members of the opiate family will result in disqualification.

Sign-up sheets for training times will be posted on the door of the Maze Room. The chart will also be on the wall in this room.

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[Last modified on October 11, 1998.]