My lab rats (at least the ones who had bonded with their students)
often jumped from the students' hands into the operant chambers.
And of course they were usually very reluctant to leave them when the
sessions were done (that's where the goodies were).
On Aug 17, 2008, at 8:11 AM, Dennis Goff wrote:
Claudia,
You comments exactly captured my thinking about the subject of
using animals in our research.
-----Original Message-----
From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sat 8/16/2008 6:09 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: RE: [tips] Cats in psychological research
Joan comments:
Jeez! My main reaction to these posts is "poor kittie cats!"
I have many recollections from graduate school of sharing the
elevator with a lab cat and a graduate researcher. The cat was
being escorted from the cat colony on one floor to the vision lab
on another floor. The cat and grad student would walk onto the
elevator side-by-side, get off together at the appropriate floor,
and walk together down the hall to the lab. I've seen videos of
cats in this lab leaping up into their operant box to begin data
collection. In this lab, the cats were trained psychophysical
observers. When they made the correct choice in a sensory
discrimination task, they were rewarded with a dollop of pureed
meat (fresh from the Gerber's jar). The cats went to "work" with
their tails erect and their ears perked. They were great fun to watch.
I know that not all research involving cats has such a benign face.
My husband did a post-doc in which he did single unit recordings of
auditory cells in the cat. As with the Hubel and Weisel work, the
recordings must be followed by a histological study of the location
and type of cells that gave rise to the recording. My husband would
come home from a long night at the lab at apologize to our cat (the
data collection always continued as long as possible - frequently
all night long and into the next day - to ensure that the maximum
amount of data can be gathered from each cat, who gives its life
for the research). Our understanding of vision and audition is
founded on these studies. There is a great cost to the animals. But
would you give up the medical advances in the treatment of hearing
and vision loss that has been possible because of this work?
And before we begin beating the drums of speciesism, remember that
this research also has veterinary consequences. The dog lab at my
graduate school was involved in the research associated with the
development of all those reduced-calorie chows we buy for our
overweight animals (while also learning some important things about
basic mechanisms of taste perception).
I love my cats as much as anybody (and am mourning the loss of my
20-year old feline buddy). But we need to remember to weigh the
benefits as well as the costs associated with research that
produces pain or harm to animal subjects. If we only focus on the
consequences for the animals, we do the researchers and the
discipline a disservice.
Claudia Stanny
Paul Brandon
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
Minnesota State University, Mankato
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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