Prior individual training and self-organized queuing during group emergency escape of mice from water pool.

ABSTRACT: We study the impact of prior individual training during group emergency evacuation using mice that escape from an enclosed water pool to a dry platform via any of two possible exits. Experimenting with mice avoids serious ethical and legal issues that arise when dealing with unwitting human participants while minimizing concerns regarding the reliability of results obtained from simulated experiments using 'actors'. First, mice were trained separately and their individual escape times measured over several trials. Mice learned quickly to swim towards an exit-they achieved their fastest escape times within the first four trials. The trained mice were then placed together in the pool and allowed to escape. No two mice were permitted in the pool beforehand and only one could pass through an e

SUBMITTER: Saloma C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4333824 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature