Final answer:
Latent learning provides the best evidence that animals develop cognitive maps, as shown by experiments where rats navigated a maze without immediate rewards yet learned its layout.
Step-by-step explanation:
The best evidence that animals develop cognitive maps comes from studies of latent learning, which is learning that occurs but is not immediately evident until there's an incentive to demonstrate it. In experiments conducted by psychologists such as E.C.
Tolman, rats were observed navigating a maze without the immediate reward of food. These rats formed a cognitive map of the maze, and when food was eventually introduced, they could navigate to it as quickly as rats that had been regularly rewarded with food. This showed that the rats had learned the layout of the maze without receiving continuous feedback, demonstrating that the cognitive process was taking place behind the scenes.
This type of learning differs from classical or operant conditioning where a behavior is directly associated with a stimulus. Latent learning and the development of cognitive maps show that animals can process and remember information without immediate reinforcement, illustrating a more complex form of learning.