Mazes Task

Mazes task – Lab report
Szabó Anett Zsuzsanna (EEMRDO)
Introduction
The Mazes task is a commonly used task to collect more information about learning and
working memory in the field of psychology. Researchers typically prefer to use rodents
(rats or mice) in these studies from the beginning (Small, 1901). Since then, several
types of mazes have been invented, for instance, the T-maze (Tolman, 1925) and the
Radial Arm Maze (Olton & Samuelson, 1976).
Exposure to acute stress can be an important factor in the efficiency of learning.
Depending on the brain system involved in storing and retrieving the information
(hippocampal vs. nonhippocampal memory systems) and the level of difficulty of the
task, stress can modify the number of errors made in experimental conditions (Diamond
et al., 1999).
The usage of the Mazes task on human participants is less common. Despite that it can
be shown that participants were slower to respond after stress in a virtual reality
pointing-to-target task, suggesting interference in the ability to adopt new spatial
orientations (Richardson & VanderKaay Tomasulo, 2011).
We expect that cognitively healthy participants will perform good on the task, and it will
require less time each trial to escape the maze as participants learn the correct rout. We
also expect that the number of errors will decrease at the end compared to the
beginning.
Methods
Participants. The task was administered on 17 participants (16 females and one male)
from the population of Ba psychology students at Eötvös Loránd University.
Materials and Procedure. We used the American Psychological Association’s online

psychology laboratory Mazes test.
In the task, participants were presented with 15 trials of the maze. In each trial, the
participants can see an image of three walls, which might have doorways on them. are
asked to move through them to the following room until the participants can escape the
maze. Below the image of the passageway are four arrows corresponding to the four
different directions: forward, backward, left, and right. Participants need to click on the
arrow that represents the direction they wish to move. On every instance they turn onto
an incorrect path it is counted as an error. Trial time is measured from the first time the
passageway appears until the moment of escaping from the last room. After each trial a
massage appears showing the time required to complete the round.
There was no practice phase or break during the task.
Results
We observed a decreasing trend in both number of errors (Figure 1.) and trial time
(Figure 2.). Due to this decreasing trend, a functional connection was tried to be
established to both data. According to the trend, a decreasing linear function was fitted
and visualized between the number of trials and the averaged number of errors
(Figure 1), which showed a considerable deviation from this fitted function.
Figure 1. The average number of errors decreases as the participants

complete the trials. Contrary to the decreasing trend, no unequivocal linear
connection can be observed between the number of trials and averaged number of errors
due to the considerable error of the linear function fitting ( 20%).
In case of the average escape time decreasing exponential function was fitted to the data.
In the first three trials there are huge differences between the required time to complete
the turn of the task. However, from the fourth trial the values did not differ as
considerably as before. Therefore, a decreasing exponential function can be fitted to the
data.
Figure 2. The average escape time decreases as the participants complete
the trials. The decaying exponential function can be fitted to the data showing the
decreasing nature of the average escape time as a function of the number of trials.
Discussion
The results are in line with our expectations. As the number of trials increase the
required time to complete the task decreases. It can be explained by that the
participants learned from their mistakes as well as they memorized the correct path.
One of the limitations is that our database contained only results of one male so no
conclusion can be derived for the differences among sexes in this setting. Furthermore,
it can be a possibility that the participants did not truly learn the pathways and they
rather learned the correct sequence of the arrows.
References
Diamond, D. M., Park, C. R., Heman, K. L., & Rose, G. M. (1999). Exposing rats to a
predator impairs spatial working memory in the radial arm water maze.
Hippocampus, 9(5), 542–552. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-
1063(1999)9:5<542::AID-HIPO8>3.0.CO;2-N
Olton, D. S., & Samuelson, R. J. (1976). Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory
in rats. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 2(2),
97–116. https://doi.org/10.1037/0097-7403.2.2.97
Richardson, A. E., & VanderKaay Tomasulo, M. M. (2011). Influence of acute stress on
spatial tasks in humans. Physiology & Behavior, 103(5), 459–466.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.03.019
Small, W. S. (1901). Experimental Study of the Mental Processes of the Rat. II. The
American Journal of Psychology, 12(2), 206–239.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1412534
Tolman, E. C. (1925). Purpose and cognition: The determiners of animal learning.
Psychological Review, 32(4), 285–297. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0072784

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Mazes task – Lab report

Szabó Anett Zsuzsanna (EEMRDO)

Materials and Procedure. We used the American Psychological Association’s online

Figure 1. The average number of errors decreases as the participants

Hippocampus, 9(5), 542–552. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-

in rats. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 2(2),

Richardson, A. E., & VanderKaay Tomasulo, M. M. (2011). Influence of acute stress on

spatial tasks in humans. Physiology & Behavior, 103(5), 459–466.

American Journal of Psychology, 12(2), 206–239.

Tolman, E. C. (1925). Purpose and cognition: The determiners of animal learning.

Psychological Review, 32(4), 285–297. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0072784

1. A bevezetőben jelenjen meg legalább 2 cikk az eredeti publikált teszten felül, és

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