French artist and photographer Augustin Lignier has taught a pair of rats to take selfies(自拍). The creatures' photographic training was part of an art project commenting on social media use in the modern world.
There are 56 known species of rats, which live on every continent except Antarctica. They are intelligent and adaptable, and can learn to complete many different tasks. Partly for these reasons, rats are often used in scientific and medical research.
For his project, Lignier took inspiration from B. F. Skinner, a famous psychologist (someone who studies the mind and behavior). Skinner was known for conducting behavior research with animals such as rats and pigeons. He developed a device called an operant(可操作的) conditioning chamber(also called a Skinner box). This box features a bar or lever that can provide a reward, such as food, to animals when they press it.
Lignier bought two rats from a pet store and named them Augustin and Arthur, after himself and his brother. He placed them in a tall, transparent(透明的) tower similar to a Skinner box with a camera attached to it. When a rat pressed a button inside the tower, the camera took a picture of the rat and the animal received a bit of sugar as a reward. Each photo was immediately displayed on a screen in front of the rats, "but honestly I don't think they understood it," Lignier told The New York Times.
Then Lignier changed the device setup so it would not always release sugar on command, instead providing the reward only occasionally. Still, the rats kept pressing the button, and the camera kept snapping pictures. Sometimes the rats received sugar but ignored it to keep pushing the button. Lignier said this was because the excitement of pressing the button had become its own sort of reward. "Every time they push the button, they have pleasure inside their brain," he told CBC Radio.
Lignier said he designed the project to represent the way social media platforms encourage people to keep posting by providing unpredictable rewards such as comments, likes, and attention. As for Augustin and Arthur, Lignier said, "They're really like performers, you know?"
