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Does Rats use the process of elimination?. By: Charnele and Taryn. Inspiration . A dog by the name of Chaser was taught how to fetch 1000 dolls by responding to the name of each doll. Chaser was told to fetch “Darwin”, a doll he was not conditioned to fetch.
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DoesRatsusetheprocessofelimination? By: CharneleandTaryn
Inspiration • A dog by the name of Chaser was taught how to fetch 1000 dolls by responding to the name of each doll. • Chaser was told to fetch “Darwin”, a doll he was not conditioned to fetch. • Using process of elimination, Chaser went through the pile of dolls and he fetched Darwin.
Research question • Like Chaser, will a rat use the process of elimination and respond to a novel stimuli?
Hypothesis • The rat will not respond to the novel stimuli.
Method • The materials that will be used will be two clickers, two female Sprague Dawley rats, two plastic tubs, Mazuri rat chow and three toy animals. • We will separately clicker train each rat in the plastic tubs. Clicker training consists of teaching the rat to respond to clicking noise. As a response to the clicker the rat will come to a hole that is drilled in the tub, where it will receive a small pellet of Mazuri rat chow.
Method cont’d • Step 1: We will separately clicker train each rat in the plastic tubs. Clicker training consists of teaching the rat to respond to clicking noise. As a response to the clicker the rat will come to a hole that is drilled in the tub, where it will receive a small pellet of Mazuri rat chow. • Step 2: We will separately train each rat to respond to a recorded vocal cue of our an object. The rat’s response will be determined by the number of times the rat touches the object after the sound of the vocal cue. As soon as the rat touches the object, we will click the clicker. The rat should run to the hole and receive a pellet. This will be repeated with two different objects • Step 3: We will separately train each rat to discriminate between the two objects. We will sit the two objects in the tub side by side and play a recorded vocal cue of the name of the object. When the rat approaches the correct object by touching it with its nose. We will click the clicker and the rat will go to the hole and receive a pellet. This step will be repeated for several trials. • Step 4: We will introduce a new object that the rat has never saw before. The object will be sat in the tube in a line with the other two objects. We will play a recording of the name of the object and carefully watch our rats responses.