By Elizabeth Fitzpatrick
Outgoing Features Editor
Between the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics is a little-known third event: the Rat Olympics. In Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Dan Kochli’s Learning and Applied Behavior Analysis class, students paired up to train six rats to compete in two sporting events: the long jump and the floor exercise.
“The first half of the class we learn really basic things about learning, things like operant and classical conditioning,” Dr. Kochli said. “In the second half of the class we talk more about how you can apply…these general principles of learning to modify behavior of individuals or groups. The students take that information and apply it to teaching rats to do these kinds of arbitrary sets of exercises.”
The six rathletes were Hyacinth Nimh, trained by juniors Willa Risgin and Katrina Callahan; Alexander the Grat, trained by junior Schaley Shaulis and senior Finneas Biles; Diva, trained by junior Caroline Derringer and senior Bella Hickman; Ricky, trained by juniors Avery Colwell and Mackenzie Coupe; Munchy Crunchy, trained by senior Elm staff writer Melinda Kern; and Lil’ Kronk trained by senior Jam Hutt-Robles and sophomore Alexis Stubbs.
According to Dr. Kochli, the rats are all male albino Sprague-Dawley rats, which are easy to handle and can learn to do many different things, although they are also shy and do not have very good vision.
In order to prevent biased judging, particularly in the floor exercises, Dr. Kochli brought in three guest judges: Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Jennifer Wanat, Associate Professor of Psychology and Co-Chair of the Psychology Department Dr. Audrey Weil, and Associate Professor of Chinese Studies and Associate Chair of World Cultures and Languages Dr. Hull.
The competition began with the symbolic lighting of the Olympic flame. The first event was the long jump, where rats crossed a gap between a cart and a table. Rats were disqualified if they failed to make the jump within a minute. The length of the gap began at 10cm, increasing each round until all rats refused to jump or one rat jumped a distance that all other rats refused.
Diva and Munchy Crunchy both made speedy and decisive crossings, while Ricky displayed an unconventional method of jumping from the table to the cart rather than from the cart to the table. Alexander the Grat was disqualified in the first round for not even attempting to jump.
“[Alexander] is a little bit difficult. He will learn, but his motivation to do things is a little sporadic. It’s a lot of ups and downs of like, ‘oh, he’s finally getting it,’ and then the next time we do it, it’s gone. That could also come from the fact that we’re not doing this every day,” Shaulis said. “We confirmed with Dr. Kochli, it’s not our methods, it’s just he specifically is being uncooperative, which I think is hilarious.”
In the second round, Diva failed to jump in the allotted time. Lil’ Kronk displayed some performance anxiety, only jumping when Hutt-Robles’ back was turned.
The third round saw the distance increase to 25cm. Hyacinth Nimh leaped with no hesitation. Munchy Crunchy overcame adversity after an initial tumble. Ricky was motivated to cross with some butt pats with only 10 seconds to spare. Lil’ Kronk’s performance anxiety got the best of him and he refused to cross.
The distance increased to 35 cm in the fourth round. Ricky and Hyacinth Nimh both refused to jump, although Hyacinth made farther jumps in training, according to Risgin and Callahan. Munchy Crunchy was the only rat who attempted the 35cm distance—twice—though he fell both times.
In a tie-breaking round, the distance was lowered to 30cm, though all three remaining rats decided the promised treat was not worth it, and refused to attempt. The guest judges awarded Munchy Crunchy first place in the long jump for his two fearless attempts at the 35cm distance. Hyacinth Nimh came in second due to his “aesthetic style” in the earlier rounds. Ricky placed third.
For the second event, the floor exercise, each set of trainers designed their own routine. They started with behaviors the rats naturally engage in, such as biting or standing on their hind legs. The students chose a target behavior, such as carrying a ball, and gradually guided the rats toward the target behavior.
Each rat performed their exercise in a plastic bin placed under a camera to avoid audience crowding. The rats were given three minutes to perform their target behavior, guided by their trainers, and were then awarded a score out of 10 from each of the guest judges.
Hyacinth Nimh performed the tightrope walk, crossing a tightrope made out of tape and walking through a hoop. This talented acro-rat made five successful crossings and was awarded 10, 10, and 8 by the judges.
According to Callahan, Hyacinth Nimh overcame many trials during training, including a broken toenail.
“While we were training at one point, the tape bridge collapsed and it spooked him, and then he struggled to get back to where he was, so him crossing five times in a row—which was better than he even did in training—was really good to see,” Risgin said.
Alexander the Grat was supposed to push a ball around, but much like with the long jump, he appeared unconcerned with his assigned task. Instead, he seemed much more interested in climbing the walls of his enclosure, and only nudged the ball with his tail once, possibly by accident. Alexander earned 2, 2, and 5 from the judges.
“He’s lazy but pure of heart,” Shaulis said.
According to Shaulis, she and Biles had initially wanted to teach Alexander to play fetch, and had also considered giving him a tiny net to push the ball into, but his complete lack of interest in performing prompted them to re-evaluate their goals.
“It’s very natural for rats to want to bite things. He won’t bite. The ball is supposed to encourage them to bite, because of the fact that it has bars on it, but he won’t bite. We hot-glued a pellet to the bottom of his ball at one point and he got it for a little bit, but then if we removed the pellet he wouldn’t want anything to do with the ball,” Shaulis said. “He’s very unpredictable in that way.”
Munchy Crunchy was supposed to spin but gave a lackluster performance. He exhibited minor pellet-following behavior, but refused to complete a full turn, earning a 1, 2, and 3 from the judges.
Diva’s floor exercise was jumping through a hoop, then rearing up on his hind legs. He took a little while to warm up but executed this maneuver with style six times in his three-minute time slot. Diva earned a 10, 10, and 9 from the judges.
Ricky was also trained to spin, with greater success than Munchy Crunchy. After spinning, Ricky was trained to perform an additional flourish of standing on his hind legs. Ricky earned an 8, 6, and 7 from the judges.
Colwell described the differential reinforcement they used to guide Ricky towards the desired behavior. When he did something close to what they wanted, they reinforced the behavior with food. Over time they could use food as a stimulus to prompt Ricky to spin on his own.
“The stuff we learned about shaping and identifying certain behaviors has been very applicable to what we’re doing with it now,” Colwell said.
Finally, Lil’ Kronk rang a bell. According to Stubbs and Hutt-Robles, the bell was placed in the corner of his bin because rats do not like open spaces. Lil’ Kronk successfully rang the bell one time, although he was also rewarded each time he stepped on the bell even if it did not make a noise. Lil’ Kronk earned a 6, 4, and 7 from the judges.
After deliberation, the judges awarded first place in the floor exercises to Diva, second place to Hyacinth Nimh, and third place to Ricky. After averaging the rats’ placements in both events, Ricky earned third place overall, Diva earned second place, and Hyacinth Nimh won first place.
Although this year the Rat Olympics were not open to the public, Dr. Kochli has hopes of turning the Rat Olympics into a campus event in the future, by collecting more data and interviews during the training process and recording the event to be screened on campus.
“I do hope that this will be something that we can grow into a little bit of entertainment and excitement,” Dr. Kochli said. “We had some barriers…I think if we revise a couple of things about how the training works and tweak which strain [of rat] we’re using, I think we’ll have more dynamic results next year.”
Photo Caption: Lil’ Kronk, trained by senior Jam Hutt-Robles and sophomore Alexis Stubbs, participates in the long jump.
Photo by Elizabeth Fitzpatrick