According to psychology researcher, Ben Vermaercke, rats can actually be superior to us humans on a cognitive level. The reason according to many repeated studies of performing the same tasks between Rats and Humans is due to shortcuts that humans take. We do this because of the complexity of our thought process. We look for rules to define and discriminate our universe of decisions so that we can be much more efficient. Leaves of three, let them be. We setup rules to avoid or select based on already understood experience.
Now rats have similar brain pattern and function as humans. They have multiple patterns of speech and complicated communication systems. They are very in tune with their environment, despite being labeled as blind all the time. They are able to process and synthesize multiple inputs into a common, and even shared interpretation. They have even demonstrated some rudimentary use of tools and other mechanism to gain their desired result.
In the studies, rats perform equally well as humans on simple pattern recognition exercises. When they learn a pattern, they can quickly and easily apply that pattern again to get the same result. They have an ability to apply a pattern of known good items to a new set of items that exhibit similar equalities. When the tests make this more complicated by adding in new dimensions or variables, the rats tend to outperform humans. Why? Humans make it too complicated. The rat goes after the goal, through the least effort possible and uses the pattern recognition across multiple dimensions. Humans can do this as well, but when new conditions are introduced they slow down, whereas the rat does not.
Effectively, humans over think it. Rats know what works and just do that regardless of what else is going on unless they are absolutely forced to change their approach. So sometimes, especially on important things, we should think like a Rat.
Guy Reams
