Rosenzweig and Bennet(1972)

Impoverished condition

Enriched Environment

All the rats were placed in individual cages without any toys or mazes for the rats to play. The didn't place any toys to vary the levels of stimuli in each environment

The rats in the EC were placed in a cage and received toys and maze trainings in order for them to explore or play with.

What was the aim?

the rats in the EC had significantly greater activity in the neurons of the cerebral with increased transmissions of acetylcholine

Positive points after critical evaluating

-No humans were used in the experiment

-The rats weren’t harmed apart from the point they were killed in order to have their brains examined, they were at most just really bored.

-Animal rights activists won’t complain too much as the rats aren’t really being treated poorly, in fact the rats in the EC would be treated very well where as the rats in the IC would probably just be bored

Observations

Rosenzweig and Bennet wanted to see how varying the levels of stimuli in the environment around the test subject will cause any physical changes to the brain (brain plasticity specifically)

Negative points after critically evaluating

The cortex in the brains of the rats in the EC had increased in both size and mass whereas the size of the brains in the rats that stayed in the IC had stayed the same.

-The rats were killed in the end

-Ethically, it might be considered wrong to force the rat into an impoverished condition, but as the experiment had contributed a lot to brain plasticity and challenged the belief that the weight of the brain cannot change so it could be justified in that sense.

Participants

Method

- Experimental rats for enriched environment and impoverished environment

- They needed to have the exact same rat because they needed to check the change in the mass of the brain and how it is affected with enriched environment and impoverished environment.

as both human and animal brains follow the same patterns in terms of blain plasticity , it now known that poverty is a major risk factor in a childs cognitive development as poverty also ties with poor nutrition, lack of access to good education and bad health.

School of Psychology and Level of analysis

Variables

Neurobiology/ biology

Level of analysis- Biological

IV: - Whether the rat was place in an enriched environment or impoverished environment

DV: - Brains, showing the amount of brain plasticity that occurred in the rats.

10-12 rats were placed in 2 different environments, one environment being an enriched environment(EC) and the other being impoverished environment (IC).

Rosenzweig and Bennet(1972)