The senses and intelligence of the Chinese dancing mouse

For a few days during the first month of post-natal life the dancing mice which I have studied respond definitely to sounds, but neither direct nor indirect methods of testing auditory sensitiveness furnish any evidence of it in the adult.

Brightness vision is fairly acute; color vision is poorly developed. I have some evidence of the discrimination of red and blue, and of red and green, but no evidence that blue and green can be distinguished. In visual discrimination the mice apparently depend upon brightness differences.

The behavior of the dancing mouse is readily modifiable. Choice, by exclusion, of one of two objects which differ in brightness, with electrical stimulation in the case of a wrong choice, indicates that from 40 to 100 repetitions of an experience is necessary for the formation of a perfect habit. Such a modification of behavior lasts for from two to five weeks.

Modifications of behavior occur more rapidly in the male than in the female. Individual differences in plasticity and in the permanency of modification are marked.

There is little evidence of any form of imitative tendency in behavior.