These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings.
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Lab mice are getting their own back by deliberately messing up experiments
Dr Kishore Kuchibhotla, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Times: ‘It can be quite frustrating. You’ll be doing an experiment and the [mice] just don’t seem to be getting it. You’ve done everything correctly but they still seem to be making lots of errors.’...
They created an experiment where thirsty mice could hear one of two sounds. When one sound was played, they were supposed to turn a wheel to the left using their front legs, and for the other sound, they had to turn the wheel to the right.
When the mice did this correctly, they were rewarded with a drink of water, and when they spun the wheel the wrong way, they were given nothing at all.
The researchers tracked mouse choice, response speed and accuracy, and noticed that over time the mice got better at the task, but at points, the mice would stop following the rules, and do things like spin the wheel in one direction, no matter what sound they heard.
The researchers then stopped rewarding the mice for their correct answers, and soon the rodents began responding to the sounds more accurately.
The researchers believed the mice knew what they were doing the whole time, and were purposefully giving up the reward to explore their environment by doing experiments of their own.
Dr Kishore Kuchibhotla, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Times: ‘It can be quite frustrating. You’ll be doing an experiment and the [mice] just don’t seem to be getting it. You’ve done everything correctly but they still seem to be making lots of errors.’...
They created an experiment where thirsty mice could hear one of two sounds. When one sound was played, they were supposed to turn a wheel to the left using their front legs, and for the other sound, they had to turn the wheel to the right.
When the mice did this correctly, they were rewarded with a drink of water, and when they spun the wheel the wrong way, they were given nothing at all.
The researchers tracked mouse choice, response speed and accuracy, and noticed that over time the mice got better at the task, but at points, the mice would stop following the rules, and do things like spin the wheel in one direction, no matter what sound they heard.
The researchers then stopped rewarding the mice for their correct answers, and soon the rodents began responding to the sounds more accurately.
The researchers believed the mice knew what they were doing the whole time, and were purposefully giving up the reward to explore their environment by doing experiments of their own.
6 comments:
No creature that enjoys bacon and cheese can be entirely unintelligent.
Do they like chocolate?
The climate is doing exactly the same thing. It worked out that people are concerned about global warming, and is doing experiments on us.
So far, it's not particularly impressed with what it has found.
Great!
Are they trying to find the answer to life, the universe and everything?
I suggest that they swap positions.
Mice watch "scientists".
When the "scientists" correctly predict "climate boiling" the mice all chuckle and throw in a platefull of crickets and a flask of water..
Should they erroneously predict " life as normal" the room temperature is screwed up by 10C degrees. No nourishing eco-friendly food.
The "scientists" will soon learn.
dearieme - I believe they are very fond of chocolate, but I'm not sure if they prefer it with coffee.
Sam - some years ago I'm sure I caught the climate sniggering when we were told to plan drought resistant gardens to prepare for future warning.
Sackers - thanks, I hope those researchers were Hitchhiker’s Guide fans.
Jannie - they are, but they came up the the wrong answer - 24. More funding needed.
Doonhamer - that's just what should happen. Wean them off funding and replace that with crickets and water as long as they keep up the boiling narrative.
Post a Comment