Experimentally produced neurotic behavior in the rat (1938)

Director	Adelbert Ford
Producer	Psychological Cinema Register of the Pennsylvania State College
Contributors	Norman R.F. Maier and Nathan M. Glaser
Length	26
B&W/Color	Black & White
UO Library Catalog description:	None
Call #	Film Ma39
Genre	Documentary
Rare	Yes
Online	No
Copyright status	Protected
Physical condition	Poor
Oregon-related	No

Notes:

Norman R.F. Maier and Nathan M. Glaser were very interested in the rat. They each spent most of their lives studying and producing books and films on the behavior of rats. Together they published “The Abnormal Rat”, which was the result of this and other experiments. The study depicted in this film won Maier a Newcomb award but also brought an onslaught of controversy. In the study rats are taught a simple task and then once they know it well they would be presented with that same task, but the solution would be gone. The rats would become quite disillusioned and some would even have seizures. Maier suggested that these reactions were evidence of neurotic behavior. The controversy was that it could not be proved that solely that lack of solution triggered the seizures, instead many psychologists pointed to other factors, such as sound, that could have lead to the seizures.