Materials needed:
Standard Petri dish filled to a depth of 3 mm with distilled
water.
Distilled water
Styrofoam plates
Filter paper
1 M KCl
Stopwatch
Data sheet
Estimated time:
Method:
Preparation
-
Obtain the aforementioned materials and keep them nearby.
-
Set your stopwatch to indicate 20 minute periods.
-
Begin the experiment!!!!!
Pretraining
-
Soak the filter paper (one per snail) in distilled water
and place it on a styrofoam plate. We found that by placing the plate
right side up, the filter paper stays saturated longer.
-
Place the hydrated snails in their own Petri dish filled
with about 3 mm of distilled water. You can test about six snails
at one time without difficulty.
-
Once the snails are placed in the Petri dish, start your
stopwatch.
The set up for the experiment. |
-
Every time the snail's lip touches the filter paper, record
the event, and gently place the snail back in the center of the Petri dish.
The snail is about ready to touch his lips to the filter paper. |
-
Every 20 minutes record the sum of touch responses occurring
during that 20 min interval.
-
Continue this procedure for a total of 80 minutes.
-
Once the pretraining period is complete, begin preparation
for the training period.
Training
-
Split your snails up into two groups (assign some to the
experimental group and some to the control group).
-
Control group: Filter paper soaked with distilled water.
-
Experimental group: Filter paper soaked with 1 M KCl.
-
Repeat pretraining steps 2-5.
-
Continue this prodedure for a total of 60 minutes.
Below are some behaviors that you may see when the snails'
lips touch the KCl soaked filter paper.
1. The snail will lift up it's head |
2. Begin to pull in his body. |
3. Turn around and enter dish. |
Post-training
-
Repeat pretraining steps 1-5.
Continue this procedure for 60 minutes
The preceding methods were modified from the following
source. For an
overview of their methods, click below:
Kobayashi,
S., Kojima, S., Yamanaka, M., Sadamoto, H., Nakamura, H., Fujito, Y.,
Kawai,
R., Sakakibara, M., & Ito, E. (1998). Operant Conditioning of Escape
Behavior
in the Pond Snail, Lymnaea stagnalis. Zoological Science, 15, 683-690.
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