EDUCATING SNAILS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 7, 30 March 1927, Page 3

EDUCATING SNAILS

A “CAPACITY FOR LEARNING” Fresh-water snails have already been the subject of experimental psychology, but now we have the first record of the land snail being used in this connection. Two American psychologists of the University of Denver spent five months in training a land snail to walk in a certain direction in a T-shaped glass The apparatus was provided with electric wires with which to punish the snail if it went to the left arm instead of to the right. An electric light was then turned on to rouse the snail to activity and the time taken for it to reach the end c«f the right arm was noted with a stop watch. The time taken at first varied considerably and reached 2,434 seconds in one case. After the first seventeen days it never exceeded 763 seconds and after the thirty-second day the longest time taken was less than 500 seconds, many of the recorded times being between 200 and 300 seconds. From these results the psychologists conclude that the land snail has a definite capacity for learning. Personally, we feel that this takes a great weight off our mind.