In Rosenzweig’s rat experiment, many different components were used and many different things were taken into consideration. In the experiment, three male rats were chosen from each litter. They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. One rat remained in the laboratory cage with the rest of the colony This colony cage contained several rats in an adequate space with food and water always available. Another rat was assigned to the “enriched” cage. This cage had six to eight rats living in a large cage furnished with a variety of objects in which they could play with, chosen randomly out of 25 play items. The third rat was placed in an “impoverished” cage, in which the cage was slightly smaller and it was isolated in a separate room with adequate food and water
The rats were allowed to live in these different conditions for four to ten week periods. After these treatment periods, the rats were autopsied in order to determine if any differences had developed. In order to ensure correct and unbiased findings, the scientist doing the autopsy did not know which rat was in each cage, so he performed the autopsy without prior knowledge. The rat’s brains were dissected and various sections were measured, weighed and analyzed to determine the amount of cell growth and levels of neurotransmitter activity.
For the most part, they took care of everything when it came down to ensuring that the rat’s environment situation and autopsy were performed correctly. One thing that was not done correctly was the “rat’s Disneyland.” How do the scientists know whether the rat’s brains grew more because of the toys or because of the interaction with the other rats. I think that this cage should have either had one or the other, a lot of toys or a lot of other rats. Another thing wrong with this experiment is that how did the scientists know to attribute the “cell growth” to the different cage situations. The scientists couldn’t measure the rat’s brains before the experiment, so how did they know that the rats’ brains grew at all? Obviously, with the repetition of this experiment the number of times that they did, they knew that the high brain activity was because of the larger and more exciting, but still, they left out that variable.
This experiment had a large impact on psychology. This experiment shows that environment impacts brain development. The work by Rosenzweig, Bennett, and Diamond served as a catalyst for continued research in this area. Over the more than 25 years since the publication of their article, these scientists and many others have continued to confirm, refine, and expand their findings.
