Maps In Your Mind Edward Tolman was a student at Berkeley, University of California when he conducted the study on complex internal cognitive activity occurring even in rats and that these mental processes could be studied without necessity of observing them. Tolman studied as we know today cognitivebehaviorism. Tolman’s point was to explain and examine the thought process or cognitive mapping in our minds as we think of reaching a destination. As you would think of running your errands at the grocery store you typically make a list of food items to purchase, but we don't concentrate on the specific steps of mobility it takes to get there. As you know the route towards the grocery store because you've gone and had the reward of finishing your errand of grocery shopping.
Mental Representation Tolman in his article “Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men” explains you know the directions as the correct turns, roads, and the time it takes to reach your destination without effort. His method and results were his experiment of maze learning by rats.
Method & Results Rats were a common testing agent in the 1930’s and 1940’s. The strict stimulus used of food for the animals was a learning response that dismissed unobservable internal mental activities. He possessed the spatial orientation of learning experiments. With three groups of rats, the controlled group C received a reward of food at the end of completing the maze at the end of all 12 days. Group N received no reward after completion of the run through the maze for the same amount of time. Group D for the rats that were treated exactly like group N up until the eleventh day where they were rewarded as group C. The results of completing his experiment showed group C finishing with nearly no complications as group N and D did terrible but when D received reward they did better in the maze. In a second experiment they changed the route of receiving reward and the rats did better than expected when their
known route was blocked they came relatively close to the prize. This was his “spatial orientation” experiment. This experiment gave knowledge to rats of the land they were around and they were better at going to their destinations. Tolman related this experiment to humans and described the possible relations.
Implications for Psychology The mental representation are areas of destinations we go through in our minds as we know where to go or as known as “cognitive maps.” Tolman theorized that these maps are social advantages to humans. Others came to these similar conclusions like Horan, 1999. He investigated how travelers would find untouched routes in unknown areas. They made coordinates as the routine to go back would be almost easier.