Jonathan Lambert

They just have these treats.

We were all feeling isolated, low emotion. The students had been sent home. So I remember going in one day feeling that... low kind of feeling. And we had three rats that were our driver rats. And they ran up to the side of the cage, literally kind of jumping up and down like my dog Brody does when I say, you want to go for a walk? And he's flipping around. And they were reaching out to me.

We were all feeling isolated, low emotion. The students had been sent home. So I remember going in one day feeling that... low kind of feeling. And we had three rats that were our driver rats. And they ran up to the side of the cage, literally kind of jumping up and down like my dog Brody does when I say, you want to go for a walk? And he's flipping around. And they were reaching out to me.

We were all feeling isolated, low emotion. The students had been sent home. So I remember going in one day feeling that... low kind of feeling. And we had three rats that were our driver rats. And they ran up to the side of the cage, literally kind of jumping up and down like my dog Brody does when I say, you want to go for a walk? And he's flipping around. And they were reaching out to me.

Now, maybe they just associated me with a big fruit loop, but it made me feel accepted and good that they were excited for something.

Now, maybe they just associated me with a big fruit loop, but it made me feel accepted and good that they were excited for something.

Now, maybe they just associated me with a big fruit loop, but it made me feel accepted and good that they were excited for something.

Right now, we're in our third version of our rat car. So, we're in Rat Car 3 that we call rodent-operated vehicles. They're a little smaller than a shoebox, and they have the tires, and they have a steering mechanism that we had to figure out. And we use kind of old-fashioned...

Right now, we're in our third version of our rat car. So, we're in Rat Car 3 that we call rodent-operated vehicles. They're a little smaller than a shoebox, and they have the tires, and they have a steering mechanism that we had to figure out. And we use kind of old-fashioned...

Right now, we're in our third version of our rat car. So, we're in Rat Car 3 that we call rodent-operated vehicles. They're a little smaller than a shoebox, and they have the tires, and they have a steering mechanism that we had to figure out. And we use kind of old-fashioned...

operant behavioral conditioning with a Froot Loop as the incentive, that's the currency of my lab, to shape them behaviorally to enter the car, to stay in the car, to press the lever and keep that lever pressed to activate and to drive the car to the Froot Loop tree, which is their destination.

operant behavioral conditioning with a Froot Loop as the incentive, that's the currency of my lab, to shape them behaviorally to enter the car, to stay in the car, to press the lever and keep that lever pressed to activate and to drive the car to the Froot Loop tree, which is their destination.

operant behavioral conditioning with a Froot Loop as the incentive, that's the currency of my lab, to shape them behaviorally to enter the car, to stay in the car, to press the lever and keep that lever pressed to activate and to drive the car to the Froot Loop tree, which is their destination.

That's a really interesting question and probably the most popular question, frequent question that people have asked me. Do they like it? I can't give them a Qualtrics survey or something like that. So I can look at their behavior. When we bring them into the lab and to their driving arena, we transport them from their transport cage into the car, they jump in automatically.

That's a really interesting question and probably the most popular question, frequent question that people have asked me. Do they like it? I can't give them a Qualtrics survey or something like that. So I can look at their behavior. When we bring them into the lab and to their driving arena, we transport them from their transport cage into the car, they jump in automatically.

That's a really interesting question and probably the most popular question, frequent question that people have asked me. Do they like it? I can't give them a Qualtrics survey or something like that. So I can look at their behavior. When we bring them into the lab and to their driving arena, we transport them from their transport cage into the car, they jump in automatically.

So that suggests that they're at least approaching something and that's usually related to something they like. And as we're putting them into the driving arena before they even hit the rat road, they start activating the lever and it sounds like they're revving up the engine.

So that suggests that they're at least approaching something and that's usually related to something they like. And as we're putting them into the driving arena before they even hit the rat road, they start activating the lever and it sounds like they're revving up the engine.

So that suggests that they're at least approaching something and that's usually related to something they like. And as we're putting them into the driving arena before they even hit the rat road, they start activating the lever and it sounds like they're revving up the engine.

Yeah. So approach is one way that a behavioral scientist like myself could understand that. I wanted to explore it a little bit more definitively with that small group. So they had only been able to access the Froot Loop tree in their car in the past trainings.