The Zen of Rats

Dostoevsky's "Underground Man" stated that twice-two is four. We know that to be true. But more importantly, we know that we know that to be true. But what about 300467 divided by 6.345? We know that we don't know that as well (unless you were Rain Man). This is our metacognition at work. "Thinking about thinking" - it can be seen as a defining aspect of our existence. You can ask almost anyone and they can tell you whether they know something or not. But that's just it, they can tell you. What about our little critter friends scampering about our attics, restaurant kitchens, and laboratories?

This year, A. Foote and J. Crystal - University of Georgia - published a paper that suggests that rats also have metacognition. They did this through what they called a "duration-discrimination test", which is a great name that perfectly describes the test. The rats had to differentiate between long and short sound cues. Correct answers being paired with large food rewards and wrong answers paired with nothing (starvation). The curious thing was that the rats were also given the choice of not taking the test at all which guaranteed the rat a much smaller reward.

What was shown was that when presented with more difficult tests (say a medium length sound cue) the rats would almost always choose to decline the test. They refused to gamble and instead went for the smaller prize.

This means that the rats know that they don't know the answer. If that wasn't true they'd just guess and bank on luck. This leads to some new questions. It was believed that only primates are capable of metacognition and self-awareness, but if rats can be shown to have metacognition... what about other animals of "higher" intelligence? Are rats conscious beings? Do rats know that they exist? Maybe "Ratatouille" isn't so farfetched?

I don't think there is such a thing as Rat-Zen but this was an interesting read and I'm glad for the work that Foote and Crystal did on this subject. Keep the good science coming.

I know that I don't know who's reading this blog right now but since I am 80 minutes away from a new year, I wish you the best 2008 of your lifetime.

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