Introduction

Representation is the presence of a mental image or goal and it is associated with an animal’s intellect or ability to learn. Mice have commonly been trained to run and complete mazes to test the idea of learning curves and performance. Whether mice possess a mental image of their goal or simply run the maze because they have been conditioned to do so, is a somewhat difficult subject to test. This experiment will test the presence of representation in mice.

The experiment consisted of four mice that were conditioned to complete a maze. The entrance to the maze and the entrance to the reward area were each associated with different objects. Initially, the mice were placed in an intermediate area and the entrance to the maze was opened. At the end of the maze there was an entrance where their reward was placed. The reward was access to a playground area for a certain amount of time. After several trials of completing the maze, the mice were then placed in the intermediate area where the object associated with the maze entrance and the object associated with the reward entrance were placed at different ends. Their time spent near each entrance was recorded. The hypothesis is that mice will spend more time near the entrance associated with the reward even though they have been conditioned to complete the maze in order to reach their reward.