In the early work of Small (1) and Watson (2) the general theory was advanced that the most important sensory cues by which the animal learns to run the maze are derived from the kinesthetic sense. In attempting to prove this theory, Watson deprived rats of all their senses except the one just mentioned and the vestibular sense. Later work by Carr and Watson (3) in which they attempted to vary the length of the true pathways, keeping in so far as possible all the other factors constant, showed that differences in distance alone are sufficient to disturb the acquired patterns. Subsequent investigators, 1 including Yincent (4, 5, 6, 7), Carr (8, 9) and Stone and Weaver (10) have also demonstrated that rats deprived of their vibrassae, vision and olfaction are capable of learning, in spite of the fact that the deprivation of any one of the senses may temporarily hinder the acquisition of the maze habit.The general assumption underlying the function of kinesthesis in learning is that stimuli arise in some sort of temporal sequence from the activity of the muscles as the animal traverses the maze pattern. The further assumption which must be made is that during the process of learning this temporal sequence becomes fixed, regardless of the particular theory which is postulated to explain learning in general.That is we may assume that as long as the animal progresses in a straight line forward the temporal sequence of the kinesthetic sensation from the movement of the legs would be (a) stimulation from right fore leg and contra lateral hind leg; (&) stimulation arising from the other two legs. Theoretically this sequence will
The series of experiments here recorded constituted primarily an investigation of the effect of compulsory activity on the maze learning ability of albino rats. A secondary purpose of the experiments was to study the effect of forced activity on selection and consumption of food by rats. The results obtained in the experiments on food consumption will be presented in a separate report at a later date.
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