Final answer:
Rats learning to navigate mazes demonstrate cognitive learning by forming cognitive maps, going beyond simple conditioning to apply mental representations and problem-solving skills to improve their performance in finding the reward.
Step-by-step explanation:
Cognitive Learning in Rats
The ability of rats to learn how to run a maze is a strong example of cognitive learning. Unlike simple conditioning, where an animal learns to respond to a stimulus in a certain way, cognitive learning allows an animal to create mental representations and apply problem-solving skills. Maze experiments conducted by researchers like H.C. Blodgett and E.C. Tolman have demonstrated that rats are capable of forming a cognitive map of their environment, enabling them to navigate mazes more efficiently over time.
For instance, in Blodgett's experiments from the 1920s, rats were motivated to navigate a maze by the promise of a food reward at the end. However, their performance improved over time even when the food was not immediately present, suggesting that they were not just operating on an association between the maze and food but learning the layout of the maze itself. Similarly, E.C. Tolman’s work with latent learning suggested that rats form cognitive maps of mazes which they can utilize once a motivation (like food) is introduced.