Overview

• Different types of mazes have been used in research on learning and memory in animals. Animals start at one end, navigate through the maze, and find a food treat at the end. Learning in time to reach the end and errors made (e.g., taking a wrong turn).  
• Mazes can be fun for humans as well as either a game for children or navigating a large corn maze during Halloween.
• You will be using a computer mouse to help a computer-generated mouse navigate through a maze. You’ll be timing yourself going through the maze 10 times (trials) and recording how you improve.

Instructions

1. Download the mouse maze worksheet. 
2. You will need a stopwatch. Most smartphones have stopwatches, but there are stopwatches available online.
3. Go to this website that has the interactive mouse maze: 
4. Use the single path maze, which is the default. 
5. Use the left, right, and move buttons to navigate the maze. 
6. Download the spreadsheet. Enter how long it takes in seconds to navigate the maze to the end of the maze. 
7. Go through the maze 10 times. 
8. Enter your times for each time into the Excel spreadsheet provided.  This will automatically change the acquisition graph in the Excel spreadsheet. 
9. Enter the times into the worksheet. Copy and paste the graph from the Excel spreadsheet into the worksheet. 
10. Identify the target response(s) and reward(s) in the maze.
11. Identify what is learned according to Thorndike’s theoretical law of effect (also known as the S-R reinforcement principle). 

Excel Spreadsheet, Worksheet, and How-To Video

Link to how-to video