What happened?

• EC Tolman conducted a study with rats and mazes.
• Rats were first trained to navigate a maze for a tasty food reward. This training happened in a series of trial-and-error attempts. Yummy food if they chose the right path, a dead end if they chose the wrong path.
• Then the sneaky researchers switched things up, changing the maze to a "sunburst" pattern, blocking the old path and providing 12 new ones.
• So, the big question was: which path would the rats choose now?

Theories

• Hypothesis 1: The rats would stick to their old habits, choosing paths closest to the original one (paths 9 and 10). This would back up the idea of operant conditioning and trial-and-error learning.
• Hypothesis 2: Rats would show they're smarter than we think, choosing the path that goes towards the food according to their mental map. This means they would have internalized the direction of the food from the first maze.

Results

• Plot twist! The majority of rats chose path 6, indicating they had some mental representation of the original maze.

Reality check for Behaviourism: This experiment puts a spanner in the works for pure behaviourism. If we only consider observable behavior and ignore what's going on inside the "black box" of the mind, we can't explain the rats' behavior here.

Learning beyond Trial-and-Error: Learning isn't just about making mistakes until you get it right. Sometimes it's "latent", relying on internal mental representations or "maps".

• Real-world example: Imagine you're playing a video game with a complex map. You don't just blunder around hitting walls until you learn the route. You start forming a mental map of the game world. Even if a route is blocked, you know where you're trying to get to.

Hello, Mental Representations: These mental maps can't be observed directly but they reveal themselves through consistent patterns of behavior.

Purposeful Behaviour: Our behaviour isn't just a reaction to stimuli, it can be driven by internal aims. This is the crux of "teleological behaviourism" - teleology being the study of aims or purposes.

• Real-world example: Going on a diet isn't just about the pleasure of eating healthy food (let's face it, who thinks that?). It's driven by the internal aim of becoming healthier or losing weight.

Cognitive Revolution: This experiment, among others, helped kickstart the cognitive revolution in psychology, shifting focus to internal cognitive processes.