When
discussing possible project topics with my mentor, she mentioned that she still
had cats available for research. I love cats, so I immediately jumped on the opportunity
to work with them. During the research to find something that had not been
done, we discovered that there were almost no studies on cats at all. It was
amazing that the most common house pet in the United States had almost no
formal information. Seeing that there was not much of a foundation for
research, I decided to build upon one of the past few studies that truly piqued
my interest; the cognitive functions of cats.
Not only
would this help the advancement of our knowledge on the common house cat, it is
also helping to show me exactly how to research, build, and conduct my very own
experiment. Since I would like to go into psychological research, gaining this
kind of experience is extremely crucial to me. Without it, I fear that I would
have been a few steps back compared to my peers when I entered the graduate
school arena. Even though I am getting invaluable research experience, I am
also having an amazing time doing so.
Currently,
my weekly routine has changed. A week ago, I would arrive to the farm and spend
approximately 15-20 minutes in the T-maze room with each of the 6 cats. This
was to help them grow accustom to myself and the T-maze itself. Now, I have
started running the trials with each of the cats. This means that I spend each
day with only 1 cat and have them run through the maze approximately 40 times
with the treat layout changing each time. Since the start of this week, I have
learned that the common cat stereotype is true, and they really do like to do
whatever they please. While it is funny, the rebellious nature often causes me
to spend extra time completing the trials with each cat.
